
Copyright^ . 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



MODERN SUNDAY SCHOOL MANUALS 

Edited by Charles Foster Kent in 
Collaboration with John T. McFarland 



Organizing and Building 
Up the Sunday School 



By JESSE LYMAN HURLBUT 




NEW YORK: EATON & MAINS 
CINCINNATI: JENNINGS & GRAHAM 









Copyright, 19 10, by 
EATON & MAINS 



©GI.A268375 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I. The Historic Principles Underlying the Sun- 
day School Movement 7 

II. The Constitution of the Sunday School 14 

III. The Necessity and Essentials of a Graded 

Sunday School 21 

IV. The Grading of the Sunday School 30 

V. The Departments of the Graded Sunday 

School 37 

VI. The Superintendent 46 

VII. The Superintendent's Duties and Responsibil- 
ities 53 

VIII. The Associate and Department Superintend- 
ents 63 

IX. The Secretary of the Sunday School 69 

X. The Treasury and the Treasurer 75 

XI. Value of the Sunday School Library 81 

XII. The Management of the Library 91 

XIII. The Teacher's Qualifications and Need of 

Training 98 

XIV. The Training and Task of the Teacher 105 

XV. The Constituency of the Sunday School 113 

XVI. Recruiting the Sunday School 122 

XVII. The Tests of a Good Sunday School 129 

Appendix 135 



PREFATORY 

In the preparation of this volume the purpose 
was to supply a convenient handbook upon the 
organization, the management, and the recruiting 
of the Sunday school, to be read by those desiring 
information upon these subjects. But after the 
larger part of the work had been prepared a desire 
was expressed that the method of treatment be so 
modified that the volume might be employed as a 
text-book for classes and individual students in the 
department of teacher-training. It has been the 
aim of the author not to alter the work so mate- 
rially as to render it unfitting for the general reader; 
and with this in view the series of blackboard out- 
lines for the teacher, and the questions for the 
testing of the student's knowledge, have been 
placed at the end of the book. In the hope that 
both the reader and the student may receive 
profit from these pages the book is committed to 
the public. 

Jesse Lyman Hurlbut. 



THE HISTORIC PRINCIPLES UNDERLYING THE 
SUNDAY-SCHOOL MOVEMENT 

i. Magnitude of the Sunday-School Movement. 

At the opening of the twentieth century the 
Sunday school stands forth as one of the largest, 
most widely spread, most characteristic, and most 
influential institutions of the Anglo-Saxon world. 
Wherever the English race is found the Sunday 
school is established, in the Mother isle, on the 
American continent, at the Cape of Good Hope, 
and in Australasia. In the United States and 
Canada it has a following of fourteen million mem- 
bers, representing every religious denomination. 
Its periodical literature has a wider circulation 
than that of any other modern educational move- 
ment. It touches every class of society, from the 
highest to the lowest; and its largest membership 
is found among the young, who are of all ages the 
most susceptible to formative forces. It is safe to 
say that this institution has exerted a powerful 
influence upon the majority of the men and women 
of to-day, and is now shaping the character of 
millions who will be the men and women of to- 
morrow. 

2. A Modern Movement. Great as it appears in 
our time, the Sunday school is comparatively a 
modern institution. Undoubtedly, the germ of it 
can be traced back to that source of all the reli- 
gious life of the civilized world, the Hebrew people. 

7 



8 Organizing the Sunday School 

The elemental principle of the Sunday school is 
possibly to be found in the prophetic guilds before 
the Exile, and the schools of the Jewish scribes 
after the Restoration. The great Bible class of 
Ezra (Neh. 8) was not unlike a modern Sunday 
school. Yet as an organized institution the 
Sunday school began with Robert Raikes, the 
philanthropist of Gloucester, England, who on one 
Sunday in 1780 called together a group of street 
boys in a room on Sooty Alley, and employed 
young women to teach them the rudiments of 
reading and religion. If Raikes had not happened 
to be the editor of the town newspaper, and in 
constant need of copy, his Sunday school might 
soon have been forgotten. But from time to time 
he published concerning it paragraphs which were 
copied into other papers and attracted attention, 
so that the Sooty Alley Sunday school became the 
parent of a vast progeny throughout the United 
Kingdom and beyond the seas. No institution 
then in existence, or recorded in church history, 
suggested to Robert Raikes either the name or 
the plan. Both arose out of his own good heart 
and active mind. But since his day both the 
name "Sunday school" and its plan of working 
have been perpetuated, and every Sunday school 
in the world is a monument to Robert Raikes, the 
editor of Gloucester. 

3. A Lay Movement, It is a significant fact 
that the first Sunday school was established not 
by a priest, but by a private member of the Church 
of England, that its earliest teachers were not 
curates, nor sisters, but young women of the 
laity, and that throughout its history the move- 



Historic Principles 9 

ment has been directed and carried forward, in 
all lands and among nearly all denominations, by 
lay workers. 1 This is noteworthy, because in the 
eighteenth century, far more than in our time, the 
teaching of religion was regarded as the peculiar 
function of the clergy, and lay preaching was 
frowned upon as irregular. The earliest Sunday 
school may have been preserved from churchly 
opposition by its own insignificance; or it may 
have won the favor of the clergy by the fact that 
all its pupils at the close of the morning session 
were regularly marched to church. Whatever the 
cause may have been, it is certain that under a 
providence which we must regard as divine, both 
in its beginning and throughout its history, the 
Sunday school, although a laymen's movement, has 
received favor, and not opposition, from the clergy 
and the Church. 

4. Unpaid Workers. It has been stated that 
Raikes paid the young women who taught in his 
Sunday school a penny for each Sunday. But as 
the movement went onward the conductors and 
teachers were soon giving their service freely; and 
this has been the prevailing rule throughout the 
world. There are a few Sunday schools wherein a 
curate or assistant pastor is the superintendent, 
and a few mission schools that employ a salaried 
teacher who works through the week as a visitor; 
but it may be asserted that the world-wide army 
of Sunday-school workers lay upon the altar of 
the Church their free-hearted, unpaid offering of 
time, study, and effort. This has been and is a 

1 An exception is to be noted in the Sunday schools of the Roman 
Catholic Church, where most of the teachers belong to religious orders. 



lo Organizing the Sunday School 

noble, a self-denying, a splendid service; but it 
has also been a potent element in the progress of 
the movement. Those who would establish a 
school, alike in the city and on the frontier, have 
not been compelled to wait until funds could be 
raised for the salary of a superintendent and 
teachers. If only churches rich enough to pay for 
workers had established Sunday schools in our 
country, the Sunday school as an institution would 
not have advanced westward with the wave of 
population. And not only has the unpaid service 
aided the growth of the movement, it has also 
added to its moral and religious power. The pupils 
and their parents have recognized that the teachers 
were working not for pay, but from love for their 
scholars and their Saviour; and that love has 
imparted to their message a power all its own. 

5. Self-supporting. The Sunday school has been 
from the beginning and even now remains in large 
measure a self-supporting movement. It every- 
where involves expense for furniture, for teaching 
requisites, for song books, for libraries; but for the 
most part the money to meet these expenses has 
been contributed in the school, among its own 
members, and not by the church. Instances are 
on record, even, where the church, in former times, 
charged and received rent for the use of its prop- 
erty by the Sunday school! Such short-sighted 
practice has been rare, but multitudes of churches 
have found the Sunday school a source of far 
greater profit than expense. In other words, those 
who have done the work of the school have also 
paid its bills, and many families that have received 
its benefits have been exempt from its burdens. 






Historic Principles I 1 

It is noteworthy, however, that this condition is 
passing away, that churches are awakening to their 
responsibility and opportunity, and are giving to 
the Sunday school that liberal support which its 
work requires and deserves. In the ratio of invest- 
ment and return, no department of the church 
costs so little and rewards so richly as an efficient 
Sunday school. 

6. Self-governing, As a result of being self- 
supporting, the Sunday school has also been a 
self-governing institution. Paying its own way 
and asking no favor, it has been almost every- 
where an independent body, accepting no outside 
authority. It has grown up almost unrecognized 
and unnoticed by the churches. Fifty years ago 
scarcely one of the denominations, great or small, 
gave the Sunday school recognition as an integral 
part of its system. Little attention was paid to it 
in the ruling body of the local church. It chose 
its own officers, obtained its own teachers, made 
its own rules, and for its teachings was responsible 
to no ecclesiastical authority. It was generally an 
ally to, but independent of, the church. In this 
respect a gradual change has taken place. Its 
relations are now much closer, its position is de- 
fined; and the institution is sanctioned and super- 
vised by the church. 

7. Self -developing. The system of the Sunday 
school has been evolved without guidance or con- 
trol from any human authority. It has been from 
the first self-organizing, and has been also self- 
developing. Some might consider the form which 
it has taken accidental; but it is better to regard 
it as providential. The men and women who laid 



1 2 Organizing the Sunday School 

the foundations of the Sunday school were building 
under a divine direction of which they were 
unconscious. Working apart from each other, on 
both sides of the sea, and separated by wilderness 
and prairie, everywhere they established an insti- 
tution under the same general principles, and with 
substantial unity in its plans. Perhaps one cause 
for its unity of method is that it arose in the 
midst of the Anglo-Saxon race, a people which 
has instinctive tendencies toward law, system, and 
organization. If it had started among a Latin 
people, where men, and not systems, rule, there 
might have been a different form of organization, 
with different aims, with different titles for officers, 
in every province. But throughout the English- 
speaking world, which is the habitat of the Sunday 
school, the institution bears the same name. Its 
principal or conductor is called a superintendent — 
cumbrous though the title may be — and its work- 
ing force are known as teachers. 

8. Bible Study. The most prominent trait in the 
Sunday school of the present is that it has become 
the most extensive movement for instruction in 
the Sacred Scriptures that the world has yet seen. 
All these millions of members, young and old, are 
engaged in the study of one book — the Holy Bible. 
Many of these millions, indeed, study the Bible 
superficially, unintelligently, with narrow inter- 
pretations and crude methods; yet in the Sunday 
schools of the lowest type as well as of the highest 
some portion of the Bible every week is brought 
to the scholars' attention. That the Bible is so 
generally known and so widely circulated, that the 
demand for this ancient book warrants the print- 



Historic Principles 13 

ing of more than ten million copies every year, is 
due more to the Sunday school, with all its defects 
of method, than to any other institution. This 
concentration of attention upon the Bible has 
grown gradually in the Sunday school. In the 
eighteenth century Sunday school, both of England 
and America, religious instruction was only one of 
its aims; and it was instruction in the catechism 
and forms of worship rather than in the Bible. 
But by slow degrees the Bible came more prom- 
inently to the front, until now the Sunday school 
is everywhere the school with one text-book. He 
who surveys the Sunday school through the inner 
eye beholds it on one day in each week covering 
the continent with its millions of students, all 
face to face with some portion of the great text- 
book of religion. The thoughtful observer will 
reflect that a people whose children and youth 
come into weekly contact with the living word 
will not wander far from the path of righteousness. 



II 



THE CONSTITUTION OF THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 

The general characteristics of the Sunday school, 
as they have gradually developed during its long 
history, must be considered in any plan for organ- 
izing and conducting an individual school. The 
institution should be studied both ideally and 
practically: practically, to ascertain what the 
Sunday school has been and is now; yet ideally, 
with a view to developing its highest efficiency 
and largest usefulness. Such a plan for the 
specific Sunday school may be called its constitu- 
tion. It is desirable to have the constitution in 
written or printed form, but it is not necessary. 
There is no more complete system than the govern- 
ment of Great Britain, yet it has no written 
constitution; and Mr. James Bryce has shown us 
in America that the instrument known as the 
Constitution of the United States by no means 
represents our own actual method of government. 
In every nation there is an unwritten law, wrought 
out of a people's consciousness, which is more 
imperative and enduring than any parchment scroll 
or printed form. 

The general principles to be maintained in 
establishing and developing a Sunday school are 
the following: 

i . Aim. The primary aims of the Sunday school 
are religious instruction, character-development, 
and effective service. It is not to teach history, 

14 



Constitution of the Sunday School 15 

nor science, nor sociology, but religion; and not 
merely to impart a knowledge of religion to the 
intellect of its pupils, but, infinitely more impor- 
tant, to make religion an effective force in the 
life of the individual scholar. As a Christian 
institution, in the definition given by one of its 
greatest leaders, 1 "The Sunday school is a depart- 
ment of the Church of Christ, in which the word 
of Christ is taught, for the purpose of bringing 
souls to Christ, and of building up souls in Christ.' ' 
If it be in connection with a Jewish synagogue or 
temple — as are some of the best Sunday schools 
or Sabbath schools in our land — it is for the 
purpose of instruction in the faith of the ancient 
fathers, and of making their teachings live again 
in the men and women of to-day. A true religious 
education, such as the Sunday school seeks to 
give, will include three aims: (1) knowledge, 
(2) character, (3) service. There must be an 
intellectual grasping of the truth; a character 
built on the truth, out of faith in God, and the 
life of God inspiring the human soul; and service 
for God and humanity. The Sunday school seeks 
to develop not only saints in fellowship with God, 
but workers for God, who shall strive to realize 
on earth the kingdom of God, not seeking to be 
ministered unto but to minister. There have been 
centuries in the past when the Christian ideal was 
the cloistered saint, living apart in communion with 
God. But that was a pitiably incomplete conception 
of the perfect man. In our age we have the larger 
ideal of saintliness with service; and to promote 
this should be the aim of every Sunday school. 

1 Bishop John H, Vincent. 



16 Organizing the Sunday School 

2. Method. To attain its aim the Sunday school 
employs the teaching method. The Sunday school 
is not, as some weak-minded people have called 
it, "the nursery of the church." Nor is it, as it 
has been named, "the Bible service"; for, although 
it holds a service, it is more than a service. It 
is not — or should not be — a gathering of groups, 
large or small, where silent hearers listen to 
sermonettes by little preachers, miscalled teachers. 
It holds a service imbued with the spirit of wor- 
ship, yet worship is not its central purpose. It 
should have music, but it is not primarily a service 
of song. It should be pervaded by an atmosphere 
of happiness, but mere enjoyment is not its object. 
The Sunday school is a school: and the very 
word shows that its aim is instruction and char- 
acter formation, and its method is that of teaching. 
For the work of a Sunday school the essentials 
are three: 

(i) There must be the living teacher who is 
fitted to inspire, to instruct, and to guide. His 
part is not merely to pour knowledge into his 
pupils, but to awaken thought, to guide the 
search for truth, to call forth expression in char- 
acter and in action. 1 

(2) There must also be the scholar who is to 
be taught. It is his part in the process of instruc- 
tion not merely to listen and to remember, not 
merely to receive impressions, but to give expres- 
sion to the teaching, in life, in character, in influ- 
ence, and in service. The true effectiveness of the 
teaching in the Sunday school will be shown by 



1 For qualifications and functions of the teacher see Chapters XIII 
and XIV. 



Constitution of the Sunday School 17 

the reproductive power of the truth in the life 
of the scholar. 

(3) There must be a text-book in the hands 
of both the teacher and the pupil. In any school 
for religious instruction one book will of necessity 
stand prominent, that great Book of books which 
records the divine revelation to man. The Sunday 
school may teach history, geography, institutions, 
doctrines, literature of the Bible, but these only 
as a framework or a foundation for the education 
of the heart into a personal fellowship with God. 
This character-molding, faith-impelling force is the 
divine truth taught in the Bible through the 
experiences and teachings of patriarchs, prophets, 
priests, psalmists, sages, and apostles, and above 
all by the words and life and redemptive work of 
the Master himself. And the subjects of study in 
the Sunday school need not be limited to the 
text of Scripture. There may be extra-biblical 
material for the teaching of character and service; 
and all this should be open to the Sunday school. 

3 . Relation to the Church. However independent 
of the church organization the Sunday school may 
have been in its beginnings, and however self- 
dependent some union Sunday schools may of neces- 
sity be in certain churchless regions, the general fact 
is established that the Sunday school as an insti- 
tution belongs to the church, is under the care of 
the church, has a claim upon moral and financial 
support by the church, should be a feeder to the 
membership of the church, and should gratefully ac- 
cept the supervision of the church. It should re- 
gard itself and be recognized by all as in many ways 
the most important department of the church. 



1 8 Organizing the Sunday School 

4. Government. All power must be under direc- 
tion, and the mighty energies of the Sunday 
school especially need a wise, strong guidance. 
In the general management of the Sunday school 
two elements should be recognized: (1) the rights 
of the workers and (2) the authority of the church. 

(1) It must ever be kept in mind that the 
Sunday school is an army of volunteers. Its 
workers are men and women who of their own 
accord give to the school without compensation 
their gift of service. Those who make such a 
contribution to the success of the Sunday school 
should certainly have a voice in its management. 

(2) But it is not to be forgotten, on the other 
side, that the Sunday school is not superior to the 
church, nor independent of it, but subsidiary to 
it; hence the church should be able to exercise 
some control over the school if such control shall 
ever be needed. For example, in the choice of a 
superintendent, who is the executive officer of the 
school, the ruling body of the local church and 
the working body of teachers and officers should 
unite. No one should undertake to conduct a 
church Sunday school unless he thus has the 
definite assurance that his teachers are with him, 
and that his church is officially supporting him. 

5. Officers. Little need be said here on this 
subject, for it is one with which every worker is 
familiar. 

(1) There must be a leader, or manager, the 
executive head of the school, who is universally 
styled the superintendent. If we were organizing 
a new institution, and not describing one already 
world-wide and with officers already named by 



Constitution of the Sunday School I 9 

Common usage and consent, we would prefer that 
the executive of the Sunday school receive the 
title of Principal or Director; but the somewhat 
awkward word Superintendent is settled upon him, 
and will remain. 

(2) There must also be an assistant superin- 
tendent, or more than one, as the size of the 
school may demand. The better title is associate 
superintendent, as is now given in the larger 
number of well-organized schools. The superin- 
tendent should have the privilege of nominating 
his own associates or assistants, the nominations 
to be confirmed by the board of teachers and 
officers. 

(3) There will be a secretary, with such assist- 
ants as he may require, to be nominated by the 
secretary and confirmed by the teachers. 

(4) There will be a treasurer, to care for the 
funds, and to disburse them as ordered by the 
board of teachers, or the Sunday school as a whole. 

(5) Lastly, but most important of all, there must 
be the working force of instructors, the faculty of 
the institution, its teachers, who should be care- 
fully chosen. The pastor, as well as the superin- 
tendent, should have an active voice in their call, 
since they are his coworkers in the religious 
instruction of the congregation. 

6. Membership. In the conception of a Sunday 
school, both ideal and practical, the constituency 
for which it is established must be considered. 
As has been noted, it was originally for children 
only, and only for children who were destitute of 
home training, and outside of church relationship. 
The earliest Sunday schools were what are called 



20 Organizing the Sunday School 

in England ragged schools, and in America mission 
schools. But in the noble evolution of the move- 
ment the Sunday school constituency has been 
vastly enlarged; and now it is recognized that the 
Sunday school is for all ages and all classes. It 
should embrace the young and old, the ignorant 
and intelligent, the poor and rich, the sinner as 
well as the saint. The Sunday school which ful* 
fills its mission to society will welcome all the world. 



Ill 

THE NECESSITY AND ESSENTIALS OF A 
GRADED SUNDAY SCHOOL 

i. The Necessity of Grading. As the result of 
the gradual and unguided evolution of the Sunday 
school through a century or longer, most schools 
are now divided in a vague way into certain 
departments, generally known as the Primary, or 
Infant Class; the Youths Department, or Boys 
and Girls; and the Adult Department, or Bible 
Classes. Many who have charge of schools such 
as these regard them as graded, and so report 
them. But the mere naming of departments does 
not constitute a graded school. Whoever studies 
the ungraded or loosely graded Sunday school will 
perceive in it certain evils which can be removed 
only by a thorough system of grading, maintained 
faithfully through a series of years. Some of these 
conditions which make the graded Sunday school 
an absolute necessity are the following: 

(i) The School as a Whole. The close observer, 
looking at the entire school, notes first of all that 
its gains and its losses in membership are at the 
extremes of its constituency. It is the normal 
condition for the gains to come in the Primary 
section; for the little children in families are 
attracted to the school or brought there by older 
children. There is almost invariably a constant 
increase in this department, requiring frequently 
the organization of new classes in the grade above, 



22 Organizing the Sunday School 

among the younger boys and girls. But, on the 
other hand, there is a constant loss of older scholars. 
In most schools, at the age of fourteen, in what 
is known as the early adolescent period of life, 
the pupils, for one reason or another, begin to 
drop out, and few enter to take their places. 
Almost every school is thus growing at the bottom 
and dying at the top. The Primary classes are 
full, but the classes of those above fourteen years 
are usually small — two large boys here, three 
yonder. And although girls continue in the school 
more frequently than boys, there will appear the 
same conditions — some large classes of girls and 
young women, but others where discouraged 
teachers are sitting down with one, two, or three 
pupils. Six or eight years ago these same classes 
came out from the Primary Department, each 
with eight or ten pupils; now they are mere 
skeleton classes, barely alive, and threatened with 
dissolution. Every earnest, thoughtful superin- 
tendent would rejoice to find some plan that will 
guarantee large classes of young people between 
sixteen and eighteen years of age, for this is the 
most vital period in the life of the individual. 
Such a plan is proposed in the graded system. 

(2) The Condition of the Classes. Fixing the 
attention upon the several classes, the critic of the 
school system notes three unfavorable conditions: 

(a) There is the inequality in the size of classes, 
to which reference has already been made. When 
classes come together by accident, pupils bringing 
their friends, or new members joining whatever 
classes they please, some classes of boys or girls 
will inevitably be too large for good government 



Necessity of a Graded School 23 

or good teaching, and others will be too small 
to create any enthusiasm, either in the teacher or 
the pupils. 

(b) There is also an inequality in the ages of 
pupils in the same class. A class may include 
one pupil or two pupils sixteen years old, and 
others as young as ten, or even nine years; some 
who during the week are in the high school, and 
others who can scarcely read the verses assigned 
to them. 

(c) Where these inequalities of numbers and 
ages exist there is a lack of that class spirit which 
is an essential element of power in a well-ordered 
Sunday school. Every class should be a unit, 
with a strong social bond; but this ideal cannot 
be realized when there are in the class two or 
three youths in the noisy, assertive, self-conscious 
stage of early adolescence, and others who are 
several years younger. Nor can there be a proper 
social bond in a class with only two or three 
members. They are likely to be irregular in 
attendance, to find excuses for absence or for 
leaving the school, until at last the discouraged 
teacher and the listless scholars together drop out 
of sight. 

For the correction of these evils of inequality in 
numbers and in ages, and of this lack of class 
spirit, the only successful method is to grade the 
school, and resolutely to keep it graded. 

(3) Difficulties of Administration. The diffi- 
culties which confront the superintendent in the 
management of an ungraded school are many and 
great. 

(a) The first and ever-present difficulty is in 



24 Organizing the Sunday School 

obtaining teachers for new classes. The constant 
growth of the Primary Department is his perennial 
perplexity. To relieve the congestion in the 
crowded Infant Class its older pupils must be 
brought into the main school, and teachers must 
be found for them. The superintendent is always 
seeking, and often seeking vainly, for new teachers. 

(b) Another difficulty is found in the attempt 
to transfer scholars from one class to another. 
No matter how much out of place a pupil may be, 
it is almost impossible to transfer him to another 
class without incurring the displeasure of the 
teacher, the scholar, or the scholar's family. And 
however overgrown or ill-assorted a class may 
have become, to divide it is a delicate task, almost 
sure to cause ill feeling. Also, when there arises 
the need of a teacher for a new class just emerg- 
ing from the Primary Department, the natural 
plan would be to combine some of the skeleton 
classes in the other departments, and thereby re- 
lease a teacher for service with the new class. 
But the superintendent who attempts this plan 
finds that almost invariably it results in some of 
the older scholars leaving the school because their 
teacher is taken from them. 

2. The Essentials of a Graded School. Briefly 
stated, the essentials of a graded Sunday school 
are the following: 1 

(i) Departments. The graded Sunday school is 
organized in certain distinct groups, of which the 
most important, for our present purpose, are the 
Primary, Junior, Intermediate, and Senior Depart - 

1 For a more complete statement, see the volume of this series on 
The Graded Sunday School in Principle and Practice, by Dr. H. H. 
Meyer. 



Necessity of a Graded School 



25 



merits. To these will be added the Beginners and 
Adult Departments when the subject comes up 
for a complete treatment. Each of these depart- 
ments should have, if possible, a separate room; 
but if these rooms cannot be provided in the 
building, the pupils should be seated by depart- 
ments in the different parts of the one room. 
Perhaps it may be assumed that there is a separate 
room for the Primary Department; then let those 
who have most recently come from the Primary 
be seated on the right block of seats; the Youths 
or Intermediate in the middle; and the Senior 
classes on the left block, or vice versa. The 
younger classes of the department should have 
the front seats, the older those in the rear, in 
regular gradation. The school may be arranged in 
the order shown in this diagram : 



















Older 




Fourth Year 




Fourth Year 




















Older 




Third Year 




Third Year 




















Young Women 




Second Year 




Second Year 




















Young Men 




First Year 




First Year 






SENIORS 






INTERMEDIATES 






JUNIORS 








PLATFORM 







26 Organizing the Sunday School 

(2) Classes, The number of classes should be 
fixed for each department, and their relationship 
established, so that when a group of scholars is 
promoted to a higher grade in the same depart- 
ment, or in the next department, they do not 
enter as classes, but as individuals; not to form 
new classes in the department, but to be placed 
in classes already formed. This plan will keep 
the classes in the Senior Department always full, 
and avoid the unfortunate skeleton classes of the 
ungraded school. It will also impress upon the 
pupils the importance of faithful work. 

(3) Promotions. There should be annual and 
simultaneous promotions throughout the school. 
One Sunday in the year should be set apart as 
Promotion Sunday; and on that day all promo- 
tions should be made. Those who are to be 
advanced from the Intermediate to the Senior 
Department are called out by name and placed 
in their classes, which are not new classes, but old 
classes replenished with new members. These pro- 
motions will vacate the seats of the Fourth Year 
classes in the Intermediate Department. But these 
seats will at once be filled by the Third Year now 
becoming the Fourth Year, and taking their seats; 
the Second Year pupils becoming the Third Year; 
and the First Year the Second Year. The First 
Year of the Intermediate Department will be left 
vacant, to be filled by promotion of the Fourth 
Year in the Junior Department, and the moving 
up of classes to the year above in the same depart- 
ment ; and the First Year of the Junior Department 
will be filled by promotion from the Primary 
Department. 



Necessity of a Graded School 2J 

(4) Teachers. As groups of scholars pass either 
from one grade or from one department to another 
there must also be a change of teachers. This 
constitutes the crux of the entire system, and in 
its inception is apt to prove the most formidable 
obstacle in grading the school. The pupils, how- 
ever, are accustomed to a system of promotions 
in the day school, and expect to leave their 
teachers when they change their grades ; but many 
of the teachers in the Sunday school, not being 
trained under the system, dislike to lose their 
scholars, and show their dissatisfaction in ways 
that affect their pupils. This difficulty must be 
overcome by tact and an appeal to unselfish 
motives; teachers must consent for the sake of 
the common good to give up their old classes and 
take new ones which begin in the department. 
The teacher may remain in the grade and receive 
a new class each year as his pupils advance to a 
higher grade ; or he may remain with the class and 
advance until the pupils pass from their former 
department to a higher one, as from Primary to 
Junior, from Junior to Intermediate, and from 
Intermediate to Senior. He should then return to 
a new first year's class in his own department and 
lead it through the course. If any teacher asks, 
"Why cannot I go with my class into the Senior 
Department ?" the answer is that if the plan be 
permitted for one it must be recognized for all; 
and in the Senior Department there will follow 
an increasing number of classes, with a relatively 
diminishing membership in each class. The scholars 
also need the inspiration of contact with different 
teachers. Furthermore, the teacher who is adapted 



28 Organizing the Sunday School 

to the Junior or Intermediate Department is rarely 
a suitable teacher for Senior scholars. Hence 
there is need of a careful assignment of teachers 
no less than of pupils. Therefore, to maintain a 
graded school the pupils must change teachers 
when they change departments. 

(5) Lessons. There should be graded lessons 
for each department. If a graded system be 
followed in the school, as it should be, with dif- 
ferent subjects, text-books, and lessons for each 
department, giving to the entire school a regular, 
systematic, progressive curriculum, this requisite 
will be met. If, however, the uniform lesson for 
all the school be followed, as at present is still 
the case in many Sunday schools, the graded 
teaching must be given in the form of supplemental 
lessons, taught by the head of the department 
where it has a separate room, or by the teacher 
if the departments must be assembled in one 
room. In some form the graded teaching is an 
absolutely essential requisite of the graded school. 
Most schools, when once thoroughly graded, will 
realize the need of the next step in the evolution 
of the institution — lessons graded in subjects as 
well as in methods for the several departments. 

(6) Basis of Promotion. The question is often 
asked, "Should promotions be made on the basis 
of age, or as the result of examinations ?" The 
examination system may be regarded as desirable 
in the Sunday school, but there are as yet few 
schools where thorough examinations can be rigidly 
insisted on as a part of the school system, and 
promotions invariably made to depend upon stand- 
ing. A school which meets only once a week, 



Necessity of a Graded School 29 

for a session of less than an hour and a half, and 
with but one lesson period of forty minutes or 
even less, cannot maintain the same strictness in 
its standards as the public school. Moreover, new 
scholars^are continually entering the schools, and, 
while most of them begin at the foot of the ladder 
in the Primary Department, yet others enter at 
various ages and in various grades. Any system 
of promotion based merely upon acquirement 
attested by examination is sure to become in 
many instances a meaningless form when applied 
to the Sunday school. Yet acquirements and 
examinations need not be ignored in the graded 
Sunday school. There may be certain ages at 
which the pupils shall by right pass from a lower 
grade to a higher. But it may also be arranged 
that pupils who are exceptionally bright, well- 
informed, and studious can be promoted a year 
in advance of their classmates by passing exam- 
ination. Let the examination be given in writing 
to all the pupils, and let all be urged to take it; 
with the promise that those who pass will be 
promoted, even though they be less than the 
required age. But let it also be understood that 
failure to pass the examination will not keep the 
student for more than one year from promotion. 
In other words, the examination may well be 
made the door through which earnest students 
may pass on, and so keep abreast of their equals 
in training and ability. 



IV 

THE GRADING OF THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 

The question is often asked, "How may an 
ungraded Sunday school be placed on a graded 
basis ?" The work may seem simple, and easy of 
accomplishment, but when it is undertaken diffi- 
culties arise which must be intelligently and tact- 
fully met. 

i. The Difficulties. If all our Sunday-school 
teachers were trained educators, accustomed to the 
methods of the public school, they would see at 
once the advantages of the graded system, and 
heartily enter into it. But most of our teachers 
are untrained, and their range of vision often fails 
to reach beyond their own class and their imme- 
diate environment. The relation between teachers 
and scholars is personal rather than official; and 
on both sides the personal equation often com- 
plicates the problem. In every school there are a 
few teachers who are so strongly influenced by 
their feeling for their pupils that they fail to 
recognize the needs of the school. There are also 
scholars, especially in the sentimental early adoles- 
cent age, who are unwilling to leave their teachers 
when promotion is offered to them. But unless 
the change of teachers is maintained the graded 
system will utterly fail to benefit the school; 
it will be graded in name only, and not in 
fact. This part of the program must be carried 
through, even though it may cost the school 

30 



The Grading of the School 31 

the loss of a teacher or two teachers and their 
scholars. 

2. The Remedy for this difficulty is only to be 
found in carefully considered action by presenting 
the necessity and value of the plan so clearly that 
the teachers as a whole will fully understand it, 
appreciate its importance, and heartily accept it. 
The grading should not be attempted upon the 
mere fiat of the superintendent, nor on the vote 
of a bare majority of the workers. The teachers 
must recognize the self-sacrifice which it requires, 
and must make that self-sacrifice generously, giving 
up their scholars for the general good. The possible 
objections of the scholars are more easily over- 
come, for they are accustomed in the public 
schools to promotions with change of teachers, 
and readily accommodate themselves to the same 
system in the Sunday school. Thoughtfulness and 
kindness, with time, will soon remove the hin- 
drances from the path of the graded school. 

3. The Method of Grading. The school may be 
graded in either of two ways, the gradual or the 
simultaneous method. 

(1) In the gradual method the superintendent, 
with the concurrence of the teachers, may an- 
nounce that after a certain date all promotions 
will be made in accordance with the graded system, 
leaving the classes as they are until the time for 
promotion arrives. Then promote from Primary to 
Junior, from Junior to Intermediate, and from 
Intermediate to Senior, according to the principles 
of the graded school; and in four or five years, 
if the system be maintained, the result will be a 
school fully graded in all its departments. 



32 Organizing the Sunday School 

(2) In the simultaneous method of grading, the 
plan must be carefully matured, and general 
cooperation of all assured. The following plan has 
been tested in more than one school, and found 
to work successfully: 

(a) Let a careful committee be chosen to arrange 
the details of grading. The committee should 
consist of teachers acquainted with the scholars 
as far as may be practicable, and should, of course, 
include the superintendent. They should also take 
an abundance of time for their work. 

(b) Obtain the ages of all the scholars between 
eight and eighteen years of age, and, approx- 
imatively, the ages up to thirty. Let this list be 
made quietly by each teacher for his or her own 
class. It may be desirable not to inform the pupils 
for what purpose the enrollment is made. In- 
stances have been known where scholars have 
understated their ages, hoping thereby to remain 
with favorite teachers. 

(c) Let the committee go over the lists and 
assign the scholars to classes according to age and 
acquirement. In some degree social relations 
should be considered, so that each class may be 
as far as practicable a social unit. In the Inter- 
mediate Department boys and girls should be in 
separate classes, and not more than six or eight 
pupils should be placed in one class. No announce- 
ment of the assignment of scholars to classes 
should be made until the day fixed for the reorgan- 
ization of the school. It will be a good plan to 
prepare a map or chart of the schoolroom, with 
the place proposed for each class indicated upon it. 

(d) On the day appointed, after the opening 



The Grading of the School 33 

exercises, first let the seats or rooms set apart 
for the Senior Department be vacated; and then 
let the roll be called according to the new list. 

"Class No. 1, Senior Department. Mr. A , 

with the following scholars. " As their names are 
called let them take their places, until the list 
of classes and scholars in this department is filled. 
Next vacate the seats assigned to the Intermediate 
Department, and let these teachers and pupils 
take their places; then the Junior Department, 
according to the same plan. The Primary Depart- 
ment can be graded by its superintendent or 
teacher without aid from the committee. 

Let it be understood that every scholar must 
take the place assigned to him at the time when 
his name is called ; and that only for an important 
reason can an assignment, when once made, be 
changed. In a large school there will be found 
a few cases where the committee has made a mis- 
take, even with the greatest care; and these mis- 
takes should be rectified, but not until the pupils 
have taken their new places temporarily in the 
scheme of the school. 

4. Advantages of Thorough Grading. Many 
benefits will follow from the proper organization 
of the school; and their value will be increasingly 
apparent as the system is maintained through a 
series of years. 

(1) Appearance. It is the testimony of every 
superintendent and pastor who has graded his 
Sunday school that the appearance of the school 
is greatly improved by the graded system. The 
older scholars are assembled in one body, instead 
of being scattered throughout the room; scholars 



34 Organizing the Sunday School 

of the same size and age are brought together in 
classes. The school will also actually seem larger 
than it was before the grading. 

(2) Order. The order of the school will be 
more easily maintained. The big boys and the 
giggling girls, both at the self-conscious, awkward 
age, will be in a new environment, no longer the 
leaders over smaller and younger pupils, but in 
classes by themselves, and with responsibilities 
appealing to their self-respect. 

(3) Social Relations. It will be a benefit to 
the scholars of each age to be associated in groups 
of the same period in life, with the same interests 
and similar mental acquirements. Many scholars 
will find their new associations more congenial 
than their former ones in the ungraded classes, 
where older and younger people have been brought 
together. The class will now become, far more 
than it was before, a social power. 

(4) Teaching Work. In the ungraded class, with 
older and younger pupils together, the teacher 
met with his greatest difficulty in finding a com- 
mon ground of interest. In the graded class, with 
pupils of uniform age and equal intellectual under- 
standing, the teaching can be better adapted to 
the needs of the pupils. 

(5) Incentive to Interest. The prospect of pro- 
motion awakens an interest in the classes. Each 
scholar looks forward to the time when he will 
attain to a higher grade with its enlarged priv- 
ileges. 

(6) Obtaining Teachers. The grading of the 
school greatly aids in the solution of the ever- 
present problem of obtaining new teachers, (a) The 



The Grading of the School 35 

graded school requires a smaller number of teachers 
than the ungraded school, since it provides for 
the consolidation of skeleton classes in the Senior 
Department. This sets at liberty a number of 
experienced teachers for service in other grades, 
(b) Whenever a new class comes from the Primary 
Department, a teacher is already at hand in the 
Junior Department whose class at the same time 
has advanced to the Intermediate Department. 
The teacher goes year by year with his class until 
it leaves the department, and then he returns to 
a new class beginning the studies of the same 
department. (c) After the results of a teacher- 
training class are available there will always be 
trained teachers waiting for classes. 

(7) Leakage Period. The young people between 
fifteen and twenty years of age constitute the 
* 'leakage period," 1 when they are in great danger 
of drifting away from the school. They will be 
held to the school far more firmly if they have 
before them the prospect of membership in large 
classes of young people, with social opportunities, 
and club life, so popular with youth at the early 
adolescent age. It has been clearly shown by 
practical experience that an organized Senior 
Department, with large classes kept full by regular 
reinforcement from the Intermediate Department, 
will maintain itself and hold its members, while 
skeleton classes of the young people constantly 
tend to disintegration. 

The well-organized, completely graded Sunday 
school possesses such evident and great advan- 
tages that it is certain to be established wherever 

1 Dr. A. H. McKinney, in After the Primary — What? 



36 Organizing the Sunday School 

thorough and efficient religious instruction is 
sought. The sooner it comes, and the more 
faithfully it is maintained, the better it will be 
for the church of to-day and to-morrow, and the 
more quickly and effectually will the grave prob- 
lems of our modern civilization be solved. 



THE DEPARTMENTS OF THE GRADED SUNDAY 
SCHOOL 

General Scheme. The four departments essential 
to a graded Sunday school, whether large or 
small, have already been named by anticipation. 
But it is necessary to give to the subject a closer 
consideration, and to add the names of other 
departments which are needed either as depart- 
ments or subdivisions in the school. Following the 
analogy of the secular schools, the great divisions 
of a Sunday school may be named as Elementary, 
Secondary, and Advanced or Adult. The Elemen- 
tary Division will include the Cradle Roll, Begin- 
ners, Primary, and Junior, taking the scholar up 
to twelve years of age. The Secondary Division 
will include the Intermediate and Senior Depart- 
ments, also the Teacher-training Class, and will 
embrace the scholars between twelve and twenty 
years of age. The Advanced or Adult Division 
will include all the classes wherein the average age 
is above twenty years, including the Home Depart- 
ment. Beginning with the youngest children, the 
departments of a thoroughly organized school are 
the following: 

i. The Cradle Roll. 1 This should include all the 
little ones in the families of the congregation who 
are too young to attend the school. Their names, 



1 This department is now named in Sunday schools of the Protestant 
Episcopal Church, and some others, the Font Roll, or Baptismal Roll 

37 



38 Organizing the Sunday School 

in large lettering, in plain print rather than script, 
should be recorded upon a list, framed and hung 
upon the wall in the Primary room. A separate 
card catalogue should be kept of the names alpha- 
betically arranged, with ages, birthdays, parents' 
names, and the street address of each family. 
Every effort should be made to keep the list 
complete; children should inform their teachers of 
new little brothers and sisters for the Cradle Roll; 
the pastor in his visitation should take their 
names and report them; and the teacher or con- 
ductor in charge of the Cradle Roll should occa- 
sionally visit every family on the list. Whenever 
gifts are made to the pupils of the school, as at 
Christmas or on birthdays, toys and dolls for the 
little ones of the Cradle Roll should not be for- 
gotten. In a small school the care of the roll and 
the visiting of the families may be assigned to the 
Primary superintendent; but in a large Sunday 
school it will call for a special conductor, and 
recognition as a separate department. Let no 
one suppose that this is an unimportant, senti- 
mental matter. The Cradle Roll, maintained as 
it should be, will awaken interest in every 
family having a name inscribed upon it, and 
in due time will lead many little feet to the 
Sunday school. 

2. The Beginners Department. At about three 
years of age the little children should be brought 
to the school, and be regularly enrolled as attend- 
ing members, their names being now taken from 
the Cradle Roll. They should remain in the 
Beginners Department from the age of three to 
that of six years — the Kindergarten period in the 



Departments of the Graded School 39 

public school. Here they should be told simple 
Bible and nature stories, without effort to place 
the stories in chronological order; for children of 
this age have only a faint conception of the se- 
quence of events. They may be taught simple 
songs, marching exercises, etc. It is a mistake, 
however, to give them much, if any lessons, to 
tax the memory, beyond a few short sentences of 
the Bible and verses of children's songs. If they 
can meet in a room by themselves, with their own 
teacher, it will be better than to have them in 
the Primary room; for the work in this grade 
should be constantly varied, and the stories very 
brief, in order not to weary the little ones. If 
they must meet in the room with the Primary 
children, they should sit by themselves as a 
separate section, and not with their older brothers 
and sisters. 

3. The Primary Department. This department 
should be the home of little children between 
six and eight or nine years of age. They should 
remain in it until in the day school they have 
begun to read. Boys and girls may be placed in 
the same classes, which should be for those six 
years old, seven years old, and eight years old, 
respectively. With each year their seats should 
be changed, indicating their promotion from the 
lower to the higher classes. In this department 
the simpler stories of the Bible and other helpful 
stories adapted to the grade should not only be 
told but taught, and the children expected not 
only to learn but also to tell them. The Twenty- 
third Psalm, the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Command- 
ments, a few other selected passages of Scripture, 



40 Organizing the Sunday School 

and some standard hymns of the Church should 
be memorized. 

In many well-organized Sunday schools both 
the Cradle Roll and the Beginners class are recog- 
nized as subdivisions of the Primary Depart- 
ment, and are under the direction of the Primary 
superintendent. 

4. The Junior Department. This department will 
care for the children from the ages of eight or 
nine until the full age of twelve ; except that boys 
or girls who are especially advanced in intelligence 
may be promoted upon examination at eleven 
years. In a very small Sunday school all the 
pupils of this department may form one class, 
provided they can have a room by themselves. 
If they must meet with the rest of the school, 
they may be organized either in two classes, one 
of boys, the other of girls. If, however, the num- 
ber of scholars will admit, it is far better to place 
the pupils in separate classes for boys and girls, 
with different classes for each year of the period. 
To scholars of the Junior grade the great char- 
acters and events of Bible history should be 
taught in their order; also the most important 
facts about the Bible, and in a simple form the 
lands and localities of the Bible. In churches 
which use a catechism this should constitute a 
part of the teaching in the Junior Department, 
for at this period the child's verbal memory attains 
its greatest strength. 

5. The Intermediate Department. Here the 
pupils are from twelve to sixteen years of age. 
The classes should be small, generally of six boys 
or girls, never more than eight. This period in 



Departments of the Graded School 4 1 

life is known as early adolescence, and calls for 
careful direction by wise teachers. In the Inter- 
mediate Department the great biographies of the 
Bible should be studied, either as the regular or 
the supplemental lessons; also the heroic lives of 
leaders in the history of the Church, of foreign 
missionaries, and of men and women who have 
labored in the home fields. Boys and girls in 
this stage of life are instinctively hero- worshipers, 
and before them should be set high ideals of 
character and service. Special effort should be 
made in leading the scholars to personal consecra- 
tion to Christ and to union with the Church; for 
if the great decision be not made before the age 
of sixteen is reached, there is great danger that 
it will never be reached. But that decision should 
include more than a formal profession. It should 
embrace a full surrender to the will of Christ, an 
inward, conscious spiritual life, an aim for com- 
pleteness of Christian character, and especially a 
willingness to work for God and humanity. Youth 
is a season of ardor and of energy, a period of 
lofty ideals and noble endeavor. All those active 
powers of the youthful nature should be guided 
into channels of usefulness. The true twentieth 
century disciple of Christ is not one who lives 
alone feasting his soul on God, but one who stands 
among his fellow-men, eager to aid in the world's 
betterment. 

6. The Senior Department. This is the preferable 
title, although some organized schools call it the 
Young People's Department, and restrict the word 
Senior to the classes of fully adult age. Still 
others call it the Assembly, and give it an organ- 



42 Organizing the Sunday School 

ization independent of the Sunday school. 1 The 
age of entrance should be sixteen, except with 
some who in stature and mind are mature beyond 
their years. It is imperative, as we have already 
seen, that at the door of this department the 
young people should leave their former teachers, 
and should not form new Senior classes, but as 
individuals enter classes already established. This 
department includes the members of the school 
between sixteen and twenty years of age; not that 
members of classes must necessarily leave them at 
twenty, but that men er women above that age 
entering the school should rather join the Adult 
Department. The classes may be as large as the 
arrangement of rooms will allow; larger where each 
class can have a separate room, which is the ideal 
plan. Generally, young men and young women 
should be in separate classes. The teacher of a 
young men's class should be a man whose character 
will inspire the respect and win the fellowship of 
his class. The teacher of the young women's class 
will generally be a lady, although often men have 
been successful teachers of young women. 

In this department the classes should be organ- 
ized, each with its own officers, chosen by the 
members; and the class should be consulted when 
a teacher is to be appointed, although the voice 
of the class in the decision should be advisory and 
not mandatory. Especial attention should be given 
to the social activities of this department. Each 
class should have its own gatherings, classes of 
young men and women should meet together 
occasionally, and a Senior Reception should be 

1 Suggested by Dr. J. H. Vincent. 



Departments of the Graded School 43 

held at least annually to promote acquaintance 
among the members. The interest of the young 
people should also be enlisted in some definite 
form of service for the church or the community. 

7. The Teacher-Training Department. The most 
promising young people, both men and women, 
should be selected at sixteen years of age — the 
time of promotion into the Senior Department — 
and should be organized as the Teacher-training or 
Normal Class. The best teacher obtainable should 
be assigned to this department. Often in the 
high school or some near-by college, a scholarly, 
Bible-loving instructor may be found who is will- 
ing to give a part of his time to the equipment of 
teachers for the coming generation. A text-book 
should be chosen from among those approved by 
the International Teacher-training Committee. No 
person should be admitted to this class who is 
not walling to give some time during the week to 
the study of the course. While the rest of the 
school may be studying the regular lessons, 
whether graded or uniform, this class should be 
at work with the teacher-training text -books. 
There should be thorough instruction with examina- 
tions looking toward a certificate of work done, such 
as the International Teacher-training diploma. 1 
The course may cover two, three, or four years; 
and new members may be placed in the class at 
the opening of each year, to begin at the point 
where the class is studying, and to remain until 
they shall have completed the entire course. In 

1 For full information concerning Teacher-training, courses, examina- 
tions, and diplomas, write to the State Secretary of Sunday School 
Work, or to the office of the International Sunday School Association, 
No, 140 Dearborn Street, Chicago. 



44 Organizing the Sunday School 

a properly graded school after a few years there 
will be a class graduating from and a class enter- 
ing the Teacher-training Department each year. 

This department should also include a Reserve 
Class, consisting of those who are ready to act as 
substitutes for absent teachers. If the uniform 
lessons are followed, the Reserve Class should study 
the lesson a week in advance of the school. Into 
this class the graduates of the Teacher-training 
Class should be placed, to remain until classes are 
ready for them in the school. 

In some schools the Teacher-training and Re- 
serve Classes do not form a separate department, 
but are two classes in the Senior Department. 
But it is the better plan in a large school to estab- 
lish the Teacher-training Department, with its own 
officers, thereby adding to its prestige in the school. 

8. The Adult Department. This will include all 
who are above the age of twenty years. It is the 
judgment of advanced leaders in Sunday-school 
work that at twenty years those who have be- 
longed to Young People's classes in the Senior 
Department should leave them for the Adult 
Department. Otherwise, the Senior Department 
in a few years will cease to be a place where young 
people of sixteen and eighteen years feel at home. 
In the Adult Department men and women may 
meet together as members of the same class, unless 
there arise a demand for separate classes and the 
numbers enrolled justify the division. In con- 
ducting these classes two forms of instruction have 
been found to be successful: (i) the colloquial 
method of teaching, the class studying and dis- 
cussing the lesson together under the guidance of 



Departments of the Graded School 45 

the leader; and (2) the lecture method, the teacher 
being the principal speaker, but always admitting 
questions and answers on the subject suggested by 
the lesson. Classes in this department may be 
allowed to choose their own courses of study, 
provided (1) that the subjects and methods are 
in line with the general aim of religious education, 
and not merely secular science or history; (2) that 
the courses of successive years have some sequence, 
and are not chosen in a haphazard, accidental 
manner. The Adult Department under wise direc- 
tion should promote a large, intelligent, broad- 
minded, philanthropic type of Christian character 
in the church and the community. 

9. The Home Department. This department, like 
the Cradle Roll at the other extreme of the Sunday- 
school constituency, is composed of people, both 
young and old, who cannot be present at its ses- 
sions, but are interested in its work, and willing 
to give some time to its studies. In every com- 
munity there are such people — aged or infirm men 
and women, invalids, mothers unable to leave their 
offspring, commercial travelers, and people who live 
too far from the school to attend it. These are 
organized into the Home Department, furnished 
with the literature of the school, study its text- 
books, make their report of work done, and send 
their contributions to its support through the Home 
Department superintendent or visitor. 1 

1 For plans of the Home Department, address the Secretary of the 
State Sunday School Association, or Dr. W. A. Duncan, Syracuse, New 
York, who is recognized as the founder of this system. 



VI 

THE SUPERINTENDENT 

i. His Importance. Several years ago, the 
president of the New York Central Railway was 
called upon by a legislative committee to explain 
the system of signals employed upon the railroad 
for the protection of passengers. He gave a de- 
tailed statement, answered every question, and 
then made this remark: "However perfect the 
system may seem to be, there must always be a 
man to work it; and in the final analysis more 
depends on the man than on the plan. ,, 

That which is true in every human organization 
is especially true in the Sunday school: its success 
depends not on a constitution, whether written or 
unwritten, but upon a man. In the Sunday 
school that man is the superintendent, who not 
only works the plan, but also generally plans the 
work. Given an efficient superintendent, an effi- 
cient school will usually be developed ; for the able 
man will call forth or will train up able workers. 
Hence the first and greatest requisite for a successful 
Sunday school is that the right man be chosen as 
superintendent . 

2. His Appointment. The selection of the super- 
intendent should be the task not only of the 
officers and teachers in the Sunday school, but of 
the entire church, for every family in the congre- 
gation has an interest in his appointment. The 
pastor should be consulted, and should give diligent 

46 



The Superintendent 47 

attention and time to the search for a superintend- 
ent, not merely because he may be presumed to 
know his constituency, but more especially because 
out of all the church the superintendent is to be his 
most important helper. The election of the super- 
intendent should be made by the workers in the 
school, its board of teachers and officers, and its 
action should be formally confirmed by the ruling 
board of the local church. No man should hold 
the office of a superintendent who fails to receive 
the approval of the church of which the school is a 
part. He should know that in his appointment the 
school, the church, and the pastor all unite. 

3. His Term of Office. He should be chosen 
for a term of one year; but may be reelected for 
as many terms as appear expedient. Frequent 
changes in the management of the school will 
tend to destroy the efficiency of its work. But 
whenever the great interests involved in the reli- 
gious education of an entire church or community 
require a new superintendent the change should be 
made, even though sympathy be felt for the one 
set aside. The institution must not be sacrificed 
to save the feelings of the man. 

4. His Qualifications. It is important to con- 
sider the qualifications of an ideal superintendent, 
remembering, however, that all these qualities are 
rarely to be found in one man. We must set 
before us high ideals, not expecting that they will 
always be fully realized, yet ever seeking to attain 
them as far as may be possible in this imperfect 
world. The following are the most important 
qualifications for a superintendent; some of them 
are essential, all are desirable: 



48 Organizing the Sunday School 

(1) Moral Character. The Sunday school under- 
takes to train the young in character; therefore 
he who stands as its responsible head must possess 
a character worthy of admiration and imitation. 
His life must honor, and not dishonor, his pro- 
fession. It is possible for a man whose work for 
an hour on Sunday is in behalf of the gospel so 
to live in his family, in business, and in society 
as to work for six days against the gospel, and 
more than undo all his efforts for good. The 
leader in such an uplifting movement as the Sunday 
school must have clean hands and a pure heart. 
What Saint Paul wrote of a bishop he would have 
written of a Sunday school superintendent: he 
must have "a good report.' ' In the well-known 
painting of the Emancipation Proclamation may be 
seen standing at the right hand of President 
Lincoln the Secretary of the Treasury, Salmon P. 
Chase, who once said, "A man in my position 
must not only seem right, but be right; and not 
only be right, but seem right. " So will every 
one say of the Sunday-school superintendent. 

(2) A Devout Believer. The superintendent's 
character should be irradiated with the fine glow 
of a Christian faith. He should be one who has 
seen the heavenly vision and unto it has not 
been disobedient ; one whose spirit has been kindled 
by the Divine Spirit burning like a fire within; 
one who is himself a Christian man, longing to 
lead other men into fellowship with the Father 
through Jesus Christ the Son. 

(3) A Working Church Member. We have al- 
ready learned that the Sunday school is not a 
society or an institution standing alone. It is a 



The Superintendent 49 

branch of the church, and one of the most impor- 
tant branches. The normal growth of the church 
depends in large measure upon the Sunday school, 
and the support of the Sunday school comes, or 
should come, from the church. The superintendent 
who endeavors to do his duty to his scholars will 
strive to lead them to Christ and into active 
membership and service in the church. Therefore, 
he himself must be a professed, loyal, and effective 
member of the church. His name should not only 
stand upon its roll, but his heart should also be 
enlisted in its behalf. 

(4) A Bible Student. The Sunday school is the 
school with one preeminent text-book; and of that 
Book the superintendent should be a diligent 
student. His work is executive and not instruc- 
tional; yet he must supervise the teaching, and 
this supervision he cannot rightly give unless he 
is familiar with the course of study. He should 
study the lesson of each department, perhaps not 
as thoroughly as the teachers in the department, 
but sufficiently to maintain acquaintance with their 
work. And he should master not only the specific 
lessons of the immediate course before his school, 
but also the Book as a whole. 

One successful superintendent gave as a secret 
of his power to make his school, both teachers 
and scholars, willing to do whatever he asked, 
"I never expect my teachers or scholars to do 
anything that I am not ready to do myself. Before 
I ask them to bring their Bibles I bring mine. 
When I asked my school to be ready on the follow- 
ing Sunday to repeat in concert the Nineteenth 
Psalm, I committed it to memory during the 



50 Organizing the Sunday School 

week, and when the time came spoke the words 
with the school.' ' Only that superintendent who 
himself loves the Bible, and studies it, can have 
a true Bible school. 

(5) An Able Executive. The Sunday school is 
like that vision seen by the prophet Ezekiel, a 
system of wheels within wheels, all endowed with 
life; and the master of the mechanism directing 
its motion is the superintendent. Moreover, each 
of these living wheels in the Sunday-school machine 
is a volunteer worker, who may at any moment 
drop out of his orbit. To hold together these 
varied elements, to combine their movements, to 
guide each in his own sphere, to compass the 
common purpose through all the forces working 
as one, requires a wise brain and a skillful hand. 
The superintendent should have a plan for the 
school, with details throughout for every emer- 
gency; he should be ready to assign to every 
worker the task for which he is best fitted; he 
should be able to work with others, not merely 
to command others; and he should be a leader 
whom others will follow, not by the might of an 
overmastering will, but by the magnetism of an 
attractive personality. He should never forget that 
with others as well as with himself service in the 
Sunday school is not compulsory but voluntary, 
that his associates lay on the altar their free- 
hearted, unpaid labor; and that such workers 
cannot be commanded, although by tact and wise 
generalship they may be led to accomplish the 
most difficult tasks. 

(6) Sympathy with Youth. The superintend- 
ent's office will bring him into relations with youth 



The Superintendent 51 

during all its stages, from early childhood through 
the entire adolescent period. He must be able to 
see life and the world through the eyes of a little 
child, of a growing boy, and of a young man. 
The sympathy which he needs is not a compas- 
sionate feeling for youth, but a feeling with youth, 
an ability to put himself in its place; to feel as 
young people feel, and to understand why they 
act as they sometimes do. This sympathy will 
impart a love for young people, such a love as 
will enable him to be patient with their foibles 
and faults, to exert a powerful influence over them, 
and to keep before them noble ideals of character 
and service. 

(7) Teachable Spirit. No matter how much the 
superintendent knows, or thinks he knows, he 
should hold his mind open to new knowledge. 
He should be on the alert for new ideas, from the 
periodicals, from books, and from his fellow 
workers, in conversation, at conventions and insti- 
tutes; not that he may inflict every new method 
upon his school, but that out of many methods 
he may select the best. When Michael Angelo was 
past eighty-five years old, and almost blind, he 
was found one day beside an antique torso which 
had recently been dug out of the ground, bending 
over it, and carefully pressing his fingers upon its 
surface. When asked what he was doing, he 
answered, "I am learning"! The masters in every 
department of work are never too wise nor too 
old to learn. 

If a man can be found who possesses all these 
seven traits of character and temperament, the 
school which can secure him for its superintendent 



52 Organizing the Sunday School 

will be fortunate indeed. And the superintendent 
who thoughtfully reads the catalogue of qualifica- 
tions, and feels that in some of them he is lacking, 
may by divine grace and his own will working 
together make progress toward the goal of becom- 
ing an ideal superintendent. 



VII 

THE SUPERINTENDENT'S DUTIES AND 
RESPONSIBILITIES 

The superintendent has been found, has been 
chosen, and is in his place — what are the prerog- 
atives and the duties of his office ? These may be 
considered under three classes: (i) His general 
duties. (2) His duties during the week. (3) His 
duties in the session of the school. 

1. General. (1) Supervision. It is his right to 
supervise and direct the work of the school without 
interference as to details from the teachers, the 
officers of the church, or the pastor. The pastor 
may be the admiral of the fleet, directing the 
general movements of the sea campaign; but the 
superintendent is the captain of the ship, through 
whom orders are to be given to all on board. 

(2) Selection of Teachers. He should have the 
chief word in the choice and appointment of 
teachers, but in the choice he should obtain the 
concurrence of his pastor; and their election should 
be made upon the superintendent's nomination by 
the teachers and officers. 

(3) Assignment of Scholars. He should possess 
the final authority in the assignment of scholars 
to classes, in any changes from class to class, and 
in promotions from lower to higher departments. 
In these responsibilities he may be greatly aided 
by an associate superintendent, to whom his 
authority may be delegated. 

S3 



54 Organizing the Sunday School 

(4) Program of Services. It is the superin- 
tendent's prerogative to plan and direct the 
services of the school session. It may be the part 
of wisdom for him to consult with the musical 
director or organist in the selection of hymns, but 
it is the superintendent's right to choose and to 
announce them, in common with all parts of the 
program. 

(5) Support. He is entitled to a loyal support 
from all his fellow workers; but if he is tactful he 
will take them into his confidence, will present 
his plans for their consideration, and will not 
attempt important reforms or changes without 
their concurrence. 

2. Week-day Work. He is the superintendent of 
the Sunday school for seven days in every week; 
and will find much work to be done between the 
sessions. His week-day duties will include some 
that have already been mentioned. 

(1) Program. Before he comes to the school he 
should invariably prepare a well worked out pro- 
gram for each session. It is a good plan to have 
a large blank book, in which two pages opposite 
each other are assigned to the session for the day. 
Every hymn should be selected in advance and 
noted in its place ; every announcement to be made 
should be written; the outline of a lesson review, 
if one is to be given, should be indicated; and 
space should be left for memoranda of miscel- 
laneous matters which may need attention. This 
program should be laid upon the desk, so that if 
for any reason the superintendent should be out 
of his place upon the platform an associate can 
go forward without delay. 



The Superintendent's Duties 55 

(2) Lesson Study. In schools where the uniform 
lesson is still followed in all or most departments, 
the superintendent should make himself thoroughly 
acquainted with the lesson for the coming session. 
As has been intimated, he should be prepared for 
any work expected of his teachers and scholars. 
He should be ready after the class study to give 
a practical summary of the teachings in the lesson, 
in a crisp, well-outlined talk, which will be aided 
by a blackboard illustration. And in the increas- 
ing number of schools which are employing graded 
lessons, not uniform in the departments, the 
superintendent should have at least a general 
knowledge of the subjects studied in each depart- 
ment. The more thoroughly the superintendent 
fills his own mind and heart with the truth, the 
more efficiently will the truth be taught in his 
school. 

(3) Social Duties. The superintendent should 
know all his teachers, and, as far as possible, his 
scholars also. If it be practicable for him to visit 
teachers at their homes, the visitation will greatly 
increase his influence and his usefulness. If in his 
own home, or in the parlors of some family in 
the congregation, a social gathering of the teachers 
and officers can occasionally be held, it will add 
to the social power of the school. And in the 
social relations much can be accomplished before 
and after the church service, the school session, the 
prayer meeting, and the other gatherings of the 
congregation. There are superintendents who keep 
before them up-to-date lists of the classes, and by 
study of faces during the school session, with 
judicious inquiry, are able to call large numbers 



56 Organizing the Sunday School 

of the scholars by name. Such greetings will 
strengthen the superintendent and heighten the 
loyalty of the school. 

(4) Seeking Workers. In nearly all Sunday 
schools there is a constant need of helpers, to fill 
the places of withdrawing or absent teachers; and 
the work of supplying the demand generally falls 
upon the superintendent. He may find relief in 
the work of an associate superintendent, as will 
be seen in the next chapter. Both the superin- 
tendent and his associate should always be on the 
alert for new teachers and for new scholars. As 
the builder in stone looks at every fragment of 
rock, to see where it will best fit into his wall, 
so the whole-hearted superintendent studies every 
individual in the parish, to find exactly the place 
he may fill in the school, as an officer, a teacher, 
or a scholar; and not infrequently his search will 
be rewarded by a treasure. 

(5) Cabinet Meetings. The superintendent should 
confer frequently with the several heads of depart- 
ments, and with all the officers; talking with them 
freely about his own plans, and learning theirs, 
for the welfare of the school. It is not necessary 
that these cabinet meetings should be formal, hav- 
ing a secretary and a record. They may be held 
occasionally, for a few minutes after the session 
of the school, or as a social evening at a private 
house. 

(6) Special Days. He should keep a calendar of 
special occasions in the school year, such as the 
Sundays set apart for temperance and for missions, 
Easter, Children's Day, Rally Day, Decision Day, 
Christmas, Promotion Day, and other notable 



The Superintendent's Duties 57 

events. Weeks in advance of each occasion — in the 
case of some of them even months in advance — 
he should begin to consider what special exercises 
should be held, what preparation is needed, and 
who can best supervise the plans. For a fortnight 
before Children's Day or the Christmas celebration, 
many Sunday schools are in a turmoil of confu- 
sion, and lessons abandoned, simply because the 
superintendent did not take thought in sufficient 
time. 

(7) The Convention. The Sunday-school work of 
the Christian world is now thoroughly organized 
in international, state, county, and town associa- 
tions. Each school finds itself a part in a mighty 
movement; and it is the duty of the superintendent 
to see that his school takes its place in the Sunday- 
school, army. He should see that in the institute 
and the convention his school is well represented; 
and if at all possible he should attend these gather- 
ings, and be active in them. Many a worker who 
for most of the year is alone, burdened with 
perplexities, has been refreshed, has found his 
vision enlarged and his plans improved, by con- 
ference with other workers, and by listening to 
experienced specialists. 

3. His Duties in the School Session. (1) Present 
Early. He should be at his post, if possible, 
from twenty minutes to half an hour before the 
opening of the school. However early he may 
arrive, he will probably find a group of children 
there in advance of him; and they will behave 
better if his eye is on them, especially if his glance 
is kind, and with it is a hand-shake or a word of 
recognition. The early superintendent will often 



58 Organizing the Sunday School 

be surprised to find how much business in the 
interest of the school can be transacted before the 
session. 

(2) Open Promptly, With his program ready, 
he should begin the session exactly on the minute, 
and should carry out every item according to the 
plan. If for any reason the superintendent is not 
at the desk when the moment for the opening 
arrives, the associate or first department superin- 
tendent should be empowered to call the school to 
order and begin the opening service. 

(3) Conduct Program. The superintendent 
should conduct the general program of services; 
although it is advisable to recognize the associate 
and others, by calling upon them to take some 
part in the opening or closing services. A super- 
intendent whose methods were always well chosen 
was wont once in each month to invite some 
official or prominent member of the church, who 
was not an attendant upon the school, to be 
present, sit upon the platform, and offer the prayer 
at the opening of the session. This kept the 
leading members of the church in closer relation 
to the school. 

(4) During the Lesson. As a general principle, 
the superintendent should remain at his desk 
during the lesson period; but to this rule frequent 
exceptions will be made. The supply of substi- 
tutes for absent teachers, and the assignment of 
new scholars to classes, belong to the field of the 
associate superintendent. 

(5) Lesson Review. In the Sunday schools 
which still follow the uniform system of lessons, 
studying the same portion of Scripture in all, or 



The Superintendent's Duties 59 

nearly all, the grades of the school, the superin- 
tendent should give a brief practical summing up 
of the practical points in the lesson; but this 
review should not exceed five or six minutes in 
length. If the pastor possesses the gift of terse, 
crisp speaking, this practical talk may be given 
by him. In the schools adopting the graded courses 
of lessons this review should be given in each 
department by the department superintendent. 
Here again the adaptation to the point of view 
and needs of the pupils of each grade can be 
made much more effective than in the ungraded 
school. 

(6) Closing. The superintendent should so carry 
out the program as to close the session at the 
time appointed. An hour and a quarter is as 
long as is profitable for the school; and every- 
thing that needs to be done can be brought into 
that space. Often much time is lost by unnecessary 
delays between the numbers on the program. 

4. Miscellaneous Duties, Here are a few general 
suggestions, hints, and "don'ts" for the superin- 
tendent, briefly stated : 

(1) Notebook. Let the superintendent remem- 
ber to obtain that notebook, to keep it at hand, 
and to make use of it. Some pages at the end of 
the book might be reserved for special suggestions 
gathered from books, periodicals, and meetings. 

(2) Quiet. Let him be careful not to make much 
noise during the session, but to set an example — 
which will soon be felt — in favor of quiet and 
orderly conduct. It is not at all certain that he 
needs a bell for calling attention; but if he uses 
one, let it be a little, gentle, quiet bell, held in the 



60 Organizing the Sunday School 

hand as a signal, and never rung vociferously or 
repeatedly. Said a new superintendent as he tested 
the bell on Saturday before assuming office, "What 
a magnificent bell this would be for calling mis- 
sionaries home from India !" But he never used 
it in the school. One of the best superintendents 
of a generation ago was widely known as "the 
silent superintendent/ ' He was not deaf nor 
dumb, but his manner was noticeably quiet, and 
his large Sunday school was always in perfect order. 

(3) Early Lesson. Let the opening service be 
short, so that the lesson period — which is the 
important part of the program— may be reached 
while the teachers and scholars are fresh and the 
air of the room is pure. 

(4) Use the Bible. If a Scripture lesson is read 
by the superintendent and school responsively, it 
should be from the Bible upon the desk or in 
the hand of the leader, and not from a lesson 
quarterly. Encourage the use of the Bible as a 
text-book and for reference. If the superintendent 
always brings his own Bible, he can appeal to his 
teachers and scholars to follow his example. With 
regard to the Scripture reading in the opening 
service, it is the judgment of many thoughtful 
superintendents that even in a school following 
uniform lessons the reading should not be the 
lesson for the day, but a devotional portion of 
Scripture, perhaps a selection from the Home 
Readings of the week. It is a good plan for the 
first reading of the lesson for the day to be by the 
teacher and the class together. 

(5) Lesson Period. No interruption should be 
allowed to break into the time assigned for class 



The Superintendent's Duties 6l 

study, except under imperative necessity. The 
teacher and the class should hold that period 
sacred to united study, without being diverted 
from their task by secretary, librarian, superin- 
tendent, or pastor. Said Bishop Vincent once, 
"I would like to have suspended from the roof of 
the Sunday-school hall a series of great glass half- 
globes, one for each class, to be dropped down 
over the class, and kept there during the time 
reserved for the study of the lesson!" 

(6) Speakers. A visitor should rarely be invited 
or allowed to address the school; never, unless the 
superintendent has sufficient knowledge to be sure 
that he will speak briefly, interestingly, and point- 
edly. Before the uniform lesson concentrated the 
studies of the Sunday school it was the custom 
to invite almost any visitor to speak to the school ; 
and many were the wrongs inflicted upon the boys 
and girls in those good old days by dull, loqua- 
cious Sunday-school orators. But almost every- 
body now understands that the Sunday school is 
a working institution, and its work must not be 
interrupted. 

(7) Self-control. There will be times when the 
superintendent will need to be on guard over 
himself; times when he feels depressed, or mel- 
ancholy, perhaps a little cross. If he yields to his 
natural impulses, the school will soon perceive the 
state of his nerves, and some scholars may even 
endeavor to add to his trials. At such times, let 
him watch over himself mightily, and resolve, no 
matter how he feels, to "keep sweet/' to speak 
gently, and to look cheerful. 

(8) The Aim. Lastly, one purpose should ever 



62 Organizing the Sunday School 

stand before the superintendent, and should be the 
constant object of his endeavor — to lead all his 
scholars into a personal, vital relation to Jesus as 
the Christ, to bring them into union with the 
church, and to inspire them to enter upon active 
Christian service. 



VIII 

THE ASSOCIATE AND DEPARTMENT 
SUPERINTENDENTS 

i. The Necessity. In every Sunday school there 
is need of an officer to aid the superintendent 
and to take his place when absent. Even in a 
small school the supervision can be more thorough 
and the teaching more efficient, if some one is at 
hand with authority to relieve the superintendent 
of minor details, and give him freedom for the 
general management. And in a large school 
assistants to the superintendent are an absolute 
necessity, for each department becomes in itself a 
school. There is need, therefore, of a general 
assistant to be the chief of staff to the superin- 
tendent, and, in a large and well-organized school, 
of a special assistant in each department. 

2. Titles. Until recently, the assistant superin- 
tendent in most Sunday schools was merely one 
of the teachers named to take the place of the 
superintendent when absent, but with no duties 
when the head of the school was present. In the 
complete organization that is now becoming gen- 
eral, the office has been renamed, and its functions 
distinctly assigned. The chief assistant to the 
superintendent is now generally called the Associate 
Superintendent, a higher title for his important and 
regular duties. The chief of each department in 
the Sunday school is generally called Department 
Superintendent, that is, Primary Department 

63 



64 Organizing the Sunday School 

Superintendent, Senior Department Superintend- 
ent; and each department superintendent has the 
same relation to his department that the associate 
superintendent holds to the school. 

3. Appointment. The associate superintendent 
should be nominated by the superintendent and 
confirmed by the board of teachers and officers. 
When two candidates are nominated for the office 
of superintendent, and one obtains a majority, it 
is not wise to elect the minority candidate as 
associate superintendent, unless he is entirely 
acceptable to the newly chosen superintendent. 
The chief executive of the school should not be 
compelled to find next to him a rival, who may 
be an uncongenial worker, to carry out plans 
with which the latter may not be in accord. In 
order to possess freedom in his policy the superin- 
tendent should choose his own chief helper; but he 
should receive the confirmation of his choice from 
his fellow workers in the school. The same plan 
of nomination and confirmation should be followed 
in the choice of the department superintendents. 
The associate and the department superintendents 
should constitute the superintendent's cabinet, to 
be called together often for consultation upon the 
interests of the school. 

4. Duties of the Associate Superintendent. (1) 
Not a Teacher. Unless the school be small, with 
less than a hundred members, the associate superin- 
tendent should not at the same time be the regular 
teacher of a class. He will find other work to 
occupy his time, both before and during the ses- 
sion of the school. He may, however, hold himself 
ready to act as substitute for an absent teacher. 



Associate and Department Superintendents 65 

(2) Deputy Superintendent. If for any reason 
the superintendent is absent, his place should be 
taken promptly by the associate superintendent. 
It should also be understood that if at the moment 
of opening the school, or at any point in the 
general service, the superintendent is not on the 
platform, the associate shall act as his repre- 
sentative, without the slightest reflection upon the 
superintendent's administration, the two being re- 
garded in their work as one. 

(3) Providing Substitutes. One definite duty of 
the associate superintendent should be to provide 
substitutes for absent teachers, relieving entirely 
the superintendent from that burdensome and 
perplexing task. The teachers should permit no 
ordinary hindrance to keep them from their classes, 
for no one can fully supply the place of a true 
teacher in the regard of the scholars. But when 
a teacher finds it necessary to be absent he should 
make strenuous endeavor to find a substitute ; and 
if unable to secure one, should notify, not the 
superintendent, but the associate; and before the 
lesson period the associate should have a supply 
ready. 

If the school has been properly graded it will 
include a Teacher-training Class; but under no 
circumstances should the associate take one of its 
members as a supply teacher, even for one Sunday. 
This class should remain untouched by the demand 
for teachers until its members have completed the 
prescribed course. If there is a Reserve Class, 
substitutes should be called from it in some order, 
preferably alphabetical, so that the same members 
will not be taken too frequently. 



66 Organizing the Sunday School 

Where the Sunday school is held in the after- 
noon or at noon, the associate can generally pro- 
vide for needy classes by watching at the morning 
service for possible teachers. If he is compelled 
to look for them in the Adult or Senior classes of 
the school, he should be present early, and if 
possible obtain his supplies before the opening of 
the school. If the associate superintendent has 
done his work, when the lesson begins, every class 
will have a teacher seated before it, ready for the 
Bible study. He should never wait until the time 
for opening the lesson to see what classes need 
teachers, and then undertake to obtain them by 
interrupting the teaching in three or four classes 
and calling for volunteers, while the classes without 
teachers are listlessly waiting, and valuable time is 
lost from the half-hour of the lesson period. All 
this work should be done before the lesson, and, 
if possible, before the opening of the school. 

(4) Assignment of New Scholars. Another duty 
of the associate superintendent is to meet new 
scholars and assign them to classes. For this 
work he should be present early, meet the scholars 
as they come, learn who the new scholars are, 
write down names, places of residence, ages, par- 
ents' names, why they come; and prepare material 
for the card catalogue under the secretary's care. 
Scholars bringing new members, and teachers into 
whose classes they may come, should introduce 
them to the associate superintendent, who should 
at once take charge of them. No new scholar 
below the grade of Senior should choose his own 
class, although his desire to be with friends should 
be considered, so far as it will not interfere 



Associate and Department Superintendents 67 

with the established system of classification. Some 
large graded schools have a temporary class to 
which new pupils in the Intermediate and Junior 
grades are assigned for a few sessions until their 
permanent place can be fixed. 

(5) Detailed Supervision. There are also minor 
duties wherein the associate superintendent can be 
of great service. While the superintendent is at 
the desk directing the general exercises, his asso- 
ciate may be upon the floor, quietly observing the 
condition and needs of the school. He can note 
where Bibles, song books, or lesson quarterlies are 
needed, and can see that they are distributed 
without interrupting the service. He can also give 
quiet attention to the order of the school, calling 
to their duty boisterous, talking, or inattentive 
scholars. For the superintendent to stop in 
announcing a hymn or reading the Scripture, to 
rebuke some disorderly or thoughtless pupil, breaks 
into the service and mars its dignity. The asso- 
ciate superintendent can accomplish the desired 
result at the right moment by a light step and a 
gentle word. 

(6) Chief of Staff. In a word, the associate 
superintendent should be the chief of staff to the 
executive head of the school, his eyes, ears, and 
hand; possessing full acquaintance and accord with 
his plans, and carrying them out in his name; 
informing and advising him, yet careful of criticism; 
avoiding all that would hinder, and aiding in all 
that would make his management successful. He 
can divide the labor, and relieve his chief of some 
of the most perplexing and trying details, leaving 
him free to watch over the general interests of the 



68 Organizing the Sunday School 

school. Whoever can fulfill such a service is an 
invaluable worker, and should be held in high 
honor. 

Many of the duties named above may be in the 
sphere of the department superintendent, who 
should be in his section what the associate superin- 
tendent is to the school. 



IX 



THE SECRETARY OF THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 

i. Importance. The secretary of the Sunday- 
school is an officer of far greater importance than 
is generally supposed. In too many schools some 
youth in the adolescent period is made secretary, 
merely to keep him in the school, without con- 
sideration of his capacity and adaptedness to the 
office. As a result of an unsuitable appointment, 
the minutes of the teachers' meetings are incom- 
plete, the registry of the classes is neglected, and 
the true condition of the school cannot be ascer- 
tained. If by any good fortune or by a more 
careful choice an able and faithful secretary takes 
his place, at once a new impulse is felt by the 
school. The superintendent, the teachers, and even 
the scholars will realize that energy, accuracy, and 
thoroughness count for much in the work of this 
department. They will appreciate faithful service, 
and will themselves respond to its influence. 

2. Qualifications. The ideal secretary of a Sun- 
day school should possess the following char- 
acteristics : 

(i) A Business Man. He should possess the 
instincts of a man of business, being willing to 
work, systematic in method, and thorough in care 
of details. 

(2) Regular in Attendance. He should make the 
Sunday school his business on Sunday, with a 
fidelity equal to that which he manifests toward 

69 



70 Organizing the Sunday School 

his vocation through the week. His regularity 
should also embrace promptness, coming in advance 
of the hour; for much of the secretary's work may 
be done before the opening of the service. 

(3) Good Writer, He should be able to write 
legibly, and possess skill in framing sentences 
correctly, and in writing them plainly, without 
unnecessary flourishes. 

(4) Quick Mental Action. His mental processes 
should be sufficiently rapid for him to set down 
an ordinary motion, presented in a public meeting, 
without requiring it to be repeated or written out 
by the mover. An able recorder will promptly 
express in the minutes the form of a motion or 
the spirit of a speech, thereby saving much time 
in the meeting and much space in the report. 

(5) Quiet Manner. The secretary should watch 
the program and do his work without interrupting 
it. He should never appear among the classes dur- 
ing prayer, during the reading of Scripture, or 
while a speaker is addressing the school. Only 
under urgent necessity should he come to a class 
in the lesson period, and in that case only at its 
beginning. During intervals in the service, or 
during the singing, he may find it needful at 
times to pass among the classes; but he should 
do this necessary work quietly, without distracting 
the attention of the school. 

(6) Courteous Conduct. His bearing should al- 
ways be that of a gentleman, refined and courteous, 
thoughtful of others and patient toward all; a 
manner enabling him to win the friendly aid of 
every teacher, upon whom the accuracy of the 
class record must depend. 



The Secretary 71 

Whoever can be found, in the school or the 
community, possessing these qualities, or approach- 
ing them, should be chosen as secretary of the 
Sunday school, whether man or woman. Often a 
young woman, accustomed through the week to 
business methods, becomes an efficient secretary of 
the Sunday school. 

3 . Appointment. The secretary should be elected 
by the board of officers and teachers. As he is 
not merely an assistant to the superintendent, 
but an officer of the school, it is not necessary 
that he should receive a nomination from the 
superintendent. His term of office should be one 
year, with as many reflections as will promote 
the good of the service. 

4. Assistants. In almost any school the secre- 
tary will need an assistant, whom he should 
nominate, subject to confirmation by the board of 
teachers and officers. 

5. Department Secretaries. In a graded Sunday 
school there should be an assistant secretary for 
each department, who may be one of the teachers, 
or in the Senior and Adult grades, one of the 
scholars. He should take the records of the 
classes in the department and transmit them to 
the secretary of the school. But the secretary is 
responsible for the records of the entire school, 
and should see personally that the record of each 
department is complete. 

5. Duties. The work of the secretary may be 
classified as follows: 

(1) Record of Meetings. As secretary of the 
board of teachers and officers, he should be present 
at all business meetings and make a careful record. 



72 Organizing the Sunday School 

Every motion should be stated clearly, with the 
names of its mover and its seconder, and the 
action taken. A statement should be given of 
every committee appointed, its purpose, and the 
names of its members. All committees should be 
expected to present written reports, however brief. 
A concise summary of each report, in a few sen- 
tences, or a single clause, should appear in the 
minutes of the meeting at which the report is 
presented; and the report itself should be filed 
for reference in case it should be needed. A com- 
mittee once named is on the minutes, and cannot 
be ignored nor forgotten until its report has been 
presented and adopted, and the committee has 
been formally discharged. For example, it is not 
sufficient for the committee on the Christmas en- 
tertainment to hold the entertainment; it must 
afterward report that the entertainment was held 
on a certain date; must have its report adopted, 
and receive its discharge. It should be the duty 
of the secretary from time to time to call for 
reports of committees named in the minutes of 
previous meetings, to insist that a report be 
rendered, and that some action be taken upon it. 

(2) Record of the School. In every well-ordered 
Sunday school the secretary summarizes in writing 
the attendance in each department, the total 
attendance, the number of new scholars, and 
other items to be preserved, including the weather, 
which may sometimes account for a small attend- 
ance; also a comparison with the record of the 
same Sunday last year. This report should be 
read to the school by the secretary at the call of 
the superintendent, or posted before the school; 



The Secretary 73 

and it should also be recorded in a book which 
will contain the statistics of the school through a 
term of years. 

(3) Records of Classes. The secretary and his 
assistants should prepare the books in which the 
class record of attendance is recorded. The name 
of each scholar should be given correctly and 
fully (for example, not "P. Jones," but "Frederick 
Jones"). The secretary should see that the record 
of attendance for each Sunday is accurately kept. 
He will need to give special attention to classes 
where substitutes take the place of absent teachers, 
and to see that the record for the day is not 
neglected. As often as the arrangement of the 
class books requires the rewriting of the names of 
the scholars, he should transcribe the list, always 
writing every name in full. In looking through 
the class lists he should note the names of those 
who have been absent for a series of sessions, 
and should report them to the superintendent, for 
consideration and for investigation of every habit- 
ual absentee. If these scholars can be visited, 
many of them may be retained in the school. 

(4) Records of Scholars. In addition to the 
record in the class books, another record should 
be kept of every member of the school, including 
every officer, teacher, and scholar; a card catalogue, 
each name upon a separate card, and all the cards 
filed in alphabetical order. The card for each 
scholar should give besides his name the date of 
his entrance to the school, either the date of his 
birth or his age at entering — approximative, if 
above eighteen years; his residence, with street 
and number in a city; parents' names; class to 



74 Organizing the Sunday School 

which he is assigned ; his relation to the church or 
congregation, and any other important facts. The 
card should contain the record of every promotion, 
and its date; of any changes in residence, and 
other details, so that it becomes a reliable and 
complete history of each individual in the school. 
In many schools the birthday of each member is 
kept upon the record, and is recognized by sending 
a birthday card. If a scholar or teacher leaves 
the school the fact is recorded, and the card is 
then taken from the regular catalogue and filed 
permanently in the list of "former members/ ' 

(5) Literature of the School. The secretary 
should be in charge of the literature used by the 
school, its text -books, lesson-quarterlies, and other 
periodicals. He should see that the literature is 
ordered in full time, should receive it, keep it in 
his care, and attend to its distribution. The par- 
ticular text-book for each grade is fixed by the 
superintendent; and the secretary should receive 
from him direction as to the lesson helps for each 
grade. 

(6) Correspondence. The secretary should con- 
duct all correspondence in behalf of the school or 
of the teachers as a body, unless for a special 
purpose the chairman of a committee be in charge 
of correspondence relating to his work. 

The secretary who with the aid of his staff 
undertakes to do all the work that rises before him 
will not find his task a light one. But his depart- 
ment carried on with vigor will greatly promote 
the success of the Sunday school. 



X 

THE TREASURY AND THE TREASURER 

i. In the Early Sunday School. A study of ori- 
gins has shown that in the earliest Sunday schools 
in America, as in England, provision was made for 
the payment of officers and teachers. In the first 
schools established in and near Philadelphia, each 
paid teacher had charge of what would now be 
considered a department, and the practical teach- 
ing was given under his direction by scholars, who 
were called monitors. But in a new country, where 
the settlements were small and the people mostly 
poor, the system of paid teachers soon passed 
away, and the schools were carried on by voluntary 
and unpaid workers. It was fortunate for the 
American Sunday school that in its beginnings it 
required but little money. For the place of meet- 
ing any chapel or schoolhouse or settler's cabin 
would serve. The literature was exceedingly 
meager — a few Testaments and spelling books, and 
generally these were brought by the teachers and 
scholars. When the earliest lesson books were 
published, they were not quarterlies, nor annuals, 
to be thrown away after one using, but were studied 
year after year. The largest item of expense was the 
library ; and as this was an institution for the entire 
neighborhood, the families willingly contributed to- 
ward it. Not until the Sunday school had become 
thoroughly founded did the question of its financial 
support arise as a problem. 

75 



76 Organizing the Sunday School 

2. In the Modern Sunday School. As the Sunday 
school advanced in position, in influence, and in 
better methods of work, its expenses naturally 
increased. Now, in the opening of its second 
century, its financial requirements are far greater 
than they were even a generation ago. It asks 
for special and suitable buildings, with rooms and 
furnishings adapted to the educational needs of its 
several departments; for a periodical literature 
suited to teachers and scholars of every grade, and 
requiring to be renewed every year; for an organ 
or piano — often for several, with an orchestra 
added; for an equipment of song books different 
from those in the church service; for entertain- 
ments and gifts at Christmas, and a day's outing 
for all in the summer; for libraries containing 
popular books for the scholars and helpful works 
for the teachers in their work. The demands of 
a large and growing Sunday school, in city or 
country, are great, but in nearly all congregations 
the funds for the support of the Sunday school are 
obtained with less effort than those for any other 
department of church activity, and in this liberality 
the Christian people show their wisdom and insight. 

3. Practical Ways and Means. The methods of 
financial support for the Sunday school are exceed- 
ingly varied. The simplest plan is through a 
regular weekly contribution in the classes. Where 
attention is given to the collection, and an appeal 
is occasionally made in its behalf, the school will 
generally obtain the funds needed for its own 
support. When the special need arises for the 
purchase of a piano or a library, some entertain- 
ment may be held which will by its profits swell 



The Treasury and the Treasurer 77 

the receipts. The objection to these methods, 
which are almost universal, is that they appeal to 
self-interest, and fail to educate the members of 
the school in true liberality. It is for our school, 
our piano, our library, that the appeal is made 
and the money is contributed. The scholars should 
be taught to give to the cause of Christ and his 
gospel, and not merely to interests from which they 
themselves are to receive a reward. 

4. The Ideal Way of Giving. The more excellent 
way is for the church in its annual estimate of 
expenses to include a fair, even liberal, allowance 
for the Sunday school, and at intervals through 
the year pass over to the treasury of the Sunday 
school the funds appropriated, to be expended 
according to principles and regulations provided. 
Then let every officer, teacher, and pupil in the 
school, from the Adult Department to the Primary, 
and even to the Beginners, make his own weekly 
offering to the church. Most church schools con- 
tribute to the cause of foreign missions; but there 
is equal reason why they should give to all the 
general benevolent objects for which the church 
receives an annual collection. This plan would 
unite the church and the school more firmly, would 
avoid multiplying and conflicting objects for which 
funds are raised, and, best of all, would train every 
child in the Sunday school to systematic giving 
upon the true gospel principle, which is "not to be 
ministered unto, but to minister." 

5. The Sunday-School Treasurer. The work of 
the treasurer is very different from that of the 
secretary; yet the two offices are often held by 
one person. In that case they should be regarded 



78 Organizing the Sunday School 

as distinct positions; the election to the two 
offices should be separate, and not at the same 
time for one person as secretary and treasurer. 
At every business meeting a separate report should 
be presented for the two departments, and the 
treasurership should not be regarded as a branch 
of the secretary's work. If the plan outlined in 
the last paragraph be adopted as the method of 
providing for the financial needs of the Sunday 
school, it might be well to choose the treasurer of 
the church as treasurer of the Sunday school, thus 
giving unity to the financial administration of the 
entire organization. 

6. The Treasurer's Work. This will require a 
person who is known as careful in accounts, as 
well as honorable in all his dealings. 

(1) His Charge. All the funds of the Sunday 
school should pass through his hands. If money 
is raised for any purpose, or a money-making 
entertainment is held, the treasurer should take 
charge of the receipts and pay the bills. For this 
purpose he should be ex officio a member of all 
committees required to receive and disburse funds. 

(2) Bank Account. Except in small and remote 
places, the treasurer will find it desirable to keep 
an account with a bank in behalf of the school, 
and deposit therein all moneys received. Under 
no circumstances should he deposit Sunday-school 
funds as a part of his own private account, but 
should keep separate accounts as an individual and 
as treasurer. 

(3) Reports and Vouchers. At each meeting of 
the governing board of the school he should pre- 
sent a statement of the condition of the treasury, 



The Treasury and the Treasurer 79 

with exact mention of all moneys received and 
paid since the last meeting ; and for every payment 
he should show a receipt or voucher, and on it the 
"O. K." or approval of some qualified person who 
knows that it is correct. 

(4) Bills, He should receive all bills against the 
school, and should inform himself concerning them, 
in order to be able to answer any questions raised 
by members of the board. He should present at 
the meeting a statement of all the unpaid bills 
on hand, with a forecast of bills expected, and 
obtain a vote of the board upon each bill that is 
to be paid. 

(5) Checks. It is desirable to pay bills as far as 
possible with checks, as the check will often serve 
as a receipt; and the receipted bills should be filed 
together for reference. 

(6) Audits. An Auditing Committee should be 
appointed, to examine the accounts of the school 
from time to time, and always when the treasurer 
completes his term, alike whether he is reelected 
or gives place to a successor. This committee 
should either present a written report, or should 
sign their names to the treasurer's report, with the 
indorsement, "Audited and found correct. " 

Most of the above recommendations, perhaps all 
of them, state the methods that would be followed 
by any intelligent, businesslike treasurer. But in 
the continent- wide area of the Sunday school, of 
necessity, not all treasurers are intelligent or expe- 
rienced in business methods; and there are doubt- 
less many who may profit by these suggestions. 

(7) Study of Benevolent Interests. One of the 
most important duties of a treasurer in a modern 



80 Organizing the Sunday School 

Sunday school is to study the different charitable 
objects that present themselves to the school, de- 
cide upon their merits, and then present them 
understandingly to the members of the school, with 
a view to eliciting their interest and training 
them in the spirit and habit of intelligent giving. 
This important task raises the treasurership out of 
mere mechanical service, and constitutes it one of 
the directing forces in the school. 



XI 



VALUE OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL LIBRARY 

i. The Library of the Past. Until quite recent 
times the Sunday-school library was understood to 
be a collection of books, mainly of an entertaining 
character, kept in the school, distributed at its 
sessions, and read by the scholars, for enjoyment 
rather than for instruction. Such a library was 
regarded as an essential of the Sunday school. 
However small or however poor the school, it 
must have a library. Books were scarce, and 
desirable books were high in price. There were no 
free public libraries, and few circulating libraries. 
The library was regarded as the principal attrac- 
tion of the school, and it drew the scholars. Many 
children attended two Sunday schools in order to 
obtain each week two library books. The books 
were read by all the family; and in many homes 
the Sunday-school library furnished most of the 
reading matter. The literature may not have been 
of the highest grade, but, with all its defects, the 
Sunday-school library of the past was a useful and 
valuable institution. 

2. Its Decline in the Present. In recent times, 
and especially in well-settled and cultured com- 
munities, the Sunday-school library has lost much 
of its importance. Very many schools have closed 
their libraries; and in the schools continuing their 
use only a small proportion of the scholars obtain 
books. Inquiry has shown that in cities and 

Si 



82 Organizing the Sunday School 

suburban towns a school of two hundred members 
will include not more than thirty who make use 
of the library. When the library is closed scarcely 
any complaints from the scholars are heard; nor 
is the closing of the library followed by a loss of 
scholars. Publishing houses which formerly issued 
fifty new books each year, especially for Sunday- 
school libraries, have entirely abandoned this 
branch of business. It cannot be maintained that 
the Sunday-school library for the entertainment of 
the scholars now holds a prominent place, or is a 
factor of success, in the best American Sunday 
schools. 

3. Causes of Decline. It is not difficult to find 
reasons for this present lack of interest in the 
Sunday-school library. Books are now far more 
abundant than they were formerly. They are sold 
cheaply, and are to be found in almost every 
home. The periodical literature in circulation to- 
day is apparently a hundredfold greater than it 
was two generations ago. Every city and almost 
every town has its public library. Many schools 
are furnished with free libraries. Readers can 
scarcely find time for the books and magazines 
that are open to them. Moreover, the Sunday 
school now stands in such recognized honor and 
power that it no longer needs the old-time library 
as a bait for scholars. The library for mere recre- 
ation does not readily fit into the general scheme 
of education in the modern Sunday school. Then, 
too, the educational work of the school demands 
such an outfit of books and periodicals, renewed 
each year, that the additional expense of the 
library is a heavy burden. Sharp criticism is 



Value of the School Library 83 

passed upon the quality of the books in most 
Sunday-school libraries, as being almost wholly 
stories, and stories of a cheap and commonplace 
character, many of them absolutely injurious. The 
conducting of the library is often found to inter- 
fere with the order and work of the school. These 
are among the causes which have led to disuse of 
the library in many Sunday schools. 

4. The Uses of a Good Library. Notwithstanding 
the objections to the Sunday-school library, its 
neglect by many scholars, and its abolition in 
many schools, the fact remains that the majority 
of Sunday schools still retain the library, and 
claim that it is needed. There are even places 
where the Sunday-school library holds its own 
constituency in competition with the town library; 
and in small villages the Sunday school supplies 
most of the books in circulation. The principal 
claims made in behalf of such a library are the 
following : 

(1) Family Needs. Every family needs good 
reading matter. The books that interest the young 
generally interest the old also. People who would 
be at a loss to select a book from the shelves of a 
public library will read the book brought to them 
from the Sunday-school library. The reading of 
the library-book fills leisure time on Sunday after- 
noons and on long winter evenings. 

(2) Moral Influence. While most Sunday-school 
books as literature are open to criticism, yet in 
the realm of ethics they generally present high 
ideals. The characters depicted in them may not 
be symmetrical, but on the whole they are earnest 
and upright. Youth admires heroism; and the 



84 Organizing the Sunday School 

personalities portrayed in popular Sunday-school 
books are generally heroic, even though they may 
be unduly emotional. The boys who are picked up 
by the police in railroad centers, armed for fighting 
Indians or robbing trains, generally carry an assort- 
ment of cheap novels, but they are not from 
Sunday-school libraries. If the criterion be ethics 
and not literature, most Sunday-school books will 
stand the test. 

(3) Aid to the School. As has been already 
suggested, the original aim of the library was to 
attract scholars to the school. In many places 
this influence is no longer needed; but there still 
remain communities where scholars are obtained 
and families are interested by means of the library. 
And it is an open question whether if the library 
had advanced step by step with the other depart- 
ments of the school, if the same attention had 
been given to the supply and management of the 
library as has been given to the educational work, 
if the right books had been kept upon its shelves, 
and advanced methods had been sought in their 
distribution, the library of the Sunday school 
might not still be a vigorous and successful insti- 
tution. 

5. Principles of Selection. If the governing board 
of the school decides that a library for general 
reading by the scholars is desirable, the question 
at once arises as to what principles shall determine 
the selection of books. A few of these principles 
may be stated : 

(1) Variety. The library should represent more 
than one department of literature. So general is 
the taste for stories that the tendency will be 



Value of the School Library 85 

inevitable to overload the library with works of 
fiction. Therefore special care should be given to 
include in it the lives of great and good men — 
heroes, statesmen, explorers, leaders of the church, 
and missionaries. All of these present life on its 
romantic side, and may be found written in an 
entertaining manner. Upon the shelves should also 
be placed history and science — not in many- 
volumed treatises for scholars, but in popular books 
for young people. In fact, there are few depart- 
ments of a good public library which may not 
properly be included in the library of the Sunday 
school, especially in places where the school is 
expected to supply the reading matter for the 
community. 

(2) Popularity, Merely to place books on the 
shelves of a Sunday-school library will not insure 
the reading of them. This library aims to be 
emphatically a circulating library. Its books are 
not for show, but for use; and their place to be 
seen is not on the shelves of the library-room, but 
in the homes of the scholars and teachers. It is 
absolutely essential that no book be placed in 
the library unless it is sufficiently interesting to be 
taken out and read, for an unread book is worse 
than useles in the Sunday-school library. Although 
its principles be as sound as the Ten Command- 
ments, if it be dull it must be condemned. Students 
may be willing to plod through an uninteresting 
book because it is profitable, but ordinary readers, 
especially youthful readers, will turn from it. 
Books should not be purchased because they are 
good, or because they are cheap; nor, on the other 
hand, should they be chosen only because they are 



86 Organizing the Sunday School 

popular; yet an interesting, popular quality should 
be an absolute requirement in every book placed 
upon the library shelves. 

(3) Literary Quality. Books are influential 
teachers, and a style like that of Hawthorne or 
Eliot will unconsciously mold the language of those 
who read it. On the other hand, the habitual 
readers of the slang in the comic paragraph of the 
newspaper will talk in a careless and inelegant 
manner. Of course, all books should be excluded 
from the library which deal in low, profane, or 
immoral language, without regarding the specious 
plea that such describe life as it is. We do not 
need to learn the language of the slums to know 
life; and, as one writer has said, we do not want 
a realism that can be touched only with a pair of 
tongs. The best pirate story in the English lan- 
guage is one that is without an oath from cover to 
cover, 1 and we would not exclude it from the 
Sunday-school library. Let us seek for writers 
whose expression is direct, smooth, and cultured. 
The Sunday school in its literature as well as its 
teaching should lead upward toward refinement of 
taste. 

(4) Moral Teaching. The ethical standard of 
every book in the Sunday-school library should be 
of the highest. Not that every paragraph should 
end with the application like the H<zc fabula docet 
of iEsop's fables, or that the characters in a story 
should be of a "goody-goody" kind, or that none 
but good people should appear upon the page. 
There must be some shadows in the perspective 
that the light may stand in contrast. But in no 

1 R. L. Stevenson's Treasure Island. 



Value of the School Library 87 

case should wrong, or sin, or the doubtful mo- 
ralities of modern society be made attractive. 
Moral problem stories, in which the boundary lines 
of right and wrong conduct are crossed and re- 
crossed until right seems wrong, and wrong seems 
right, should have no place. ' 'Should love stories 
be admitted?" Not if the element of love enters 
as the dominant thought of the book. A story 
should not be forbidden because there is a pair of 
lovers in it; but it should not be accepted if the 
book shows no higher motive than to set forth 
their passion. Books should be sought that will 
inculcate a noble manliness for young men and a 
noble womanliness for young women, and there are 
such books in numbers sufficient to fill the library 
shelves. 

(5) Christian Spirit. It is not required that 
every book should set forth and illustrate a spiritual 
experience. It may be religious without preaching 
religion. But the morals it inculcates should be 
founded upon the gospels and inspired by faith. 
It should be reverent in its treatment of the Bible, 
of the church, and of the ministry. A book or a 
story designed to weaken belief in the Scriptures 
as records of the divine will, or holding the church 
up to scorn, or showing a minister as its villain, 
should be kept out of the Sunday-school library. 
Criticism or discussion of the Bible, of the church, 
and of the ministry has its place, but its place is 
not in the Sunday school. The Sunday school is 
distinctively a religious and a Christian institution, 
and the atmosphere of the Christian religion should 
pervade its library. 

6. The Coming Sunday-School Library. Another 



88 Organizing the Sunday School 

library of a higher type than that designed for the 
reading and recreation of the scholars is now 
arising to notice in many advanced Sunday schools, 
and is destined to become the Sunday-school 
library of the future, either supplementing the 
library of the past or taking its place. It is 
the library which is to the Sunday school what the 
college library is to the college, a workshop equipped 
with tools for the use of the teacher and the 
scholar. It will be at once a reference library, 
containing the best Bible dictionaries, cyclopedias, 
expository works, and gospel harmonies, open at 
certain times for the use of students; and also a 
lending library of books upon the Bible, upon the 
Sunday school, upon teaching, upon religion, upon 
character, and upon the varied forms of social 
service which are now calling for workers, and will 
call yet more imperatively in the coming years. 
The books for this library must be chosen with 
wisdom; for they should represent the results of 
the best scholarship, yet be expressed in language 
that the nonprofessional reader can understand; 
and many of them must be for the scholars, who 
are of all ages and all degrees of intelligence. 
Those of the Primary Department should be able 
to find in such a library the stories of the Bible 
told in such a fascinating manner that a child 
too young to read them may listen to them with 
interest, and picture-books illustrating the events, 
the people, the dress, and the landscape of the 
Bible. It should be planned to meet the needs of 
every grade in the Sunday school, and to aid 
every teacher and every scholar; and when estab- 
lished it should be made effective in the educational 



Value of the School Library 89 

work of the school. Just as in the secular school 
and the college students are sent to the library 
with directions as to the books they will need, so 
in the Sunday school teachers will be able to 
counsel their scholars and to give them week-day 
work, so that the teaching will be more than the 
talk of the teacher; it will embrace the results of 
searching on the part of the scholar. Under the 
system of uniform lessons the use of such a library 
was well-nigh impracticable, because every class 
would need the same books at one time. But the 
uniform lessons are being rapidly displaced by the 
graded system, giving to each grade its own series 
of lessons; and this method, requiring different 
books for each age in the school, will open the way 
for reference work and study in the library. The 
time is at hand when such a working library will 
become a necessity in every well-organized school. 
7. The Public Library and the Sunday School. 
It would seem that wherever the public library is 
free, available, and well conducted some arrange- 
ment might be effected whereby the Sunday-school 
libraries could be united with the public library. 
This would lessen expense and difficulty in manage- 
ment, would avoid the unnecessary reduplication 
of copies of the same books, and would give to 
the scholars at once a wider selection and the 
advantage of the open shelf. In more than one 
town this has been accomplished. The Sunday 
schools have transferred all their libraries to the 
public library, to its enlargement, and with no 
loss of members to the schools. Some Sunday 
schools in cities have been recognized as branch 
stations of the public library, giving them the 



90 Organizing the Sunday School 

benefit of frequent changes in the equipment of 
books, which at regular intervals are selected from 
the store of the public library by the library com- 
mittee of the school. The working library for 
teachers and scholars, proposed in the last para- 
graph, in many places might be established in 
the public library, wherever the schools in the 
community will unite to show that it is needed, to 
name the books required, and to make it prac- 
tically useful. 



XII 

THE MANAGEMENT OF THE LIBRARY 

i. Library Committee. For the selection of 
books, whether in the reading library for scholars 
or the working library for teachers and scholars, 
a wise, intelligent, and careful committee should 
be chosen, and should be maintained in per- 
manent service. The pastor and the superintendent 
should be ex-officio members of this committee, but 
it should also include some other persons sufficiently 
acquainted with books to pass upon their merits, 
and willing to give time, inquiry, and thought to 
the library. There may be schools fortunate in 
possessing librarians who devote themselves to the 
selection of books, as well as to the care of them; 
and in such schools the library committees will find 
their labors lessened. No book should be admitted 
to the library without examination and approval 
by the committee. 

(i) Purchase of Books. The simplest method 
for finding books is far from being the best method. 
It is to have a quantity of books — a hundred or 
more at one time — sent by booksellers on approval. 
This method involves hasty examination, and gen- 
erally results in obtaining many useless, worthless 
books intermixed with a few good ones. The 
better plan is for the committee, first of all, to be 
supplied with catalogues from reputable publishers 
of books for children and young people, and also 
books on religious and biblical education; next to 

91 



92 Organizing the Sunday School 

read carefully the reviews of books in these depart- 
ments as given in the best literary and religious 
periodicals; then, to send only for such books as 
they judge will be desirable, receiving them on 
approval. Every book should not only be looked 
at, but read; and if at all doubtful read by more 
than one member of the committee. In some 
Sunday schools there is placed at the door a 
library box, in which may be deposited the names 
of books desired by members of the school. Lists 
of approved books are published by various houses 
and societies ; and the catalogues of a few good 
Sunday-school libraries will aid committees. The 
library committee must scrutinize closely all dona- 
tions of books offered to the library, and resolutely 
decline every book that is unsuitable, even at the 
risk of offending the donor. The Sunday-school 
library room must not be turned into a mausoleum 
for dead volumes. The committee must also be- 
ware of bargains offered by some booksellers who 
would unload upon Sunday schools their left-over 
and unsalable stock. That which costs little is 
generally worth less. The Sunday school must 
obtain only books that will be read and are worth 
reading. 

(2) Frequent Additions. The usual method is to 
use the old library until its best books are either 
worn out or lost, and then to make a strenuous 
effort at raising money for the purchase of an 
entirely new collection. But the better plan is to 
add a few carefully selected books each month to 
the library. To examine at one time two hundred 
volumes is an impossibility, and in so large a 
purchase many undesirable books are sure to be 



Management of the Library 93 

included. It is not difficult to select after careful 
examination ten books each month, and thereby 
keep the library always at a high grade of ex- 
cellence. With each purchase a slip describing 
the new books might be printed, and distributed 
to the school, thus keeping the library constantly 
before its patrons. 

2. The Librarian. There is a close analogy be- 
tween the work of the librarian in the public 
library and that in the Sunday school. For the 
public library everywhere a specialist is sought, one 
who knows books, can select them wisely, and 
can aid seekers after literature in their reading. 
The Sunday school needs just such a librarian, 
and all the more because the scholars cannot 
select from the open shelf, but must guess at the 
quality of a book from its title in the catalogue. 
It has been noticed that wherever a Sunday-school 
library is successful in holding the interest of the 
scholars there is found with it a librarian adapted 
to his work and devoting himself to it. We notice 
the characteristics of a good librarian in the 
Sunday school : 

(i) A Bookman. He is a lover of books, ac- 
quainted with them, and interested in good 
literature. His work is more than to distribute 
books: he should aid, sometimes supervise, their 
collection. 

(2) A Business Man. He is practical, orderly, 
and systematic in his ways of working; with a plan 
for his task, and fidelity in accomplishing it. 

(3) Gentle in Manner. Opportunities will be 
frequent for the librarian to clash with the scholars 
on the one hand, or with the superintendent upon 



94 Organizing the Sunday School 

the other. With one he may appear arbitrary, 
with the other disorderly, his work sometimes 
breaking into the program of exercises. He should 
be pleasant toward all, uniform in his dealings, 
and attentive to the general order of the school. 

3. His Assistants. In most schools one assistant, 
in large schools several assistants, will be required 
by the librarian. He should nominate them, sub- 
ject to the approval of the governing board of the 
school; and should require of them regular and 
prompt attendance, and attention to their work in 
the library. It is very desirable that the business 
should be so arranged as to allow the librarians 
to take part in the opening devotional service 
with the school, and not to be at work arranging 
books while others are at prayer. 

4. The Management of the Library. This involves 
four processes: the collection, the assignment, the 
distribution, and the return of the books. 

(1) The Collection. The books can easily be 
collected without interfering with the order of the 
school, if the library window is near the entrance 
to the building, and the scholars as they enter 
leave their books at the library. This is the 
method employed in most schools. 

(2) The Assignment. How to enable each scholar 
to choose his book introduces one of the three 
problems in library management. The plan gen- 
erally followed is to supply each scholar with 
a card bearing a number which represents the 
scholar. He selects from the catalogue a large 
assortment of books, and writes their numbers 
upon his card : the librarian assigns the scholar any 
one of the books selected, crosses it from his list, 



Management of the Library 95 

and upon another list marks the number of the 
book opposite the number of the scholar. The 
weakness of the plan is in the fact that the scholar 
has no means of learning from the catalogue what 
books are desirable; and a book desired by one 
may be entirely undesirable to another. Theoret- 
ically the scholar has the whole catalogue from 
which to choose; practically he has no choice, 
except the suggestion in the titles of the books. 
The open-shelf plan cannot be established in the 
Sunday school, for the room is usually too small, 
the time of the session is too brief, and the work 
of the school too important to allow interruption. 

In some graded Sunday schools another plan is 
pursued, taking from the scholar all choice, but 
assigning to each grade books of certain numbers, 
all printed upon the card of the scholar, any one 
of which books he may receive at any time during 
his stay in the grade, but each of which will fall 
to his lot but once. This plan demands a library 
of books carefully selected, and as carefully fitted 
to each grade in the school. But this method is 
apt to be unsatisfactory to the scholars, who have 
their own preferences among the books. The 
difficulties in assigning books, and disappointments 
of scholars in failing to obtain the books desired, 
is a frequent cause for the disuse of the library; 
and this problem has not as yet been fully solved. 

(3) The Distribution. This takes place at the 
close of the school, and brings in the second 
problem of library management. The books may 
be brought to the classes by the librarians, and 
distributed by the teachers; each scholar's book 
being indicated by his card placed within it. This 



96 Organizing the Sunday School 

method often causes confusion; scholars being dis- 
satisfied with their books and leaving their classes 
press around the library. Sometimes they exchange 
books with each other. This is a simple plan as 
far as the two scholars exchanging are concerned, 
but sure to make trouble in the record of the 
librarian. Or each class may be dismissed in turn, 
and obtain its books at the library window while 
passing out. But this plan causes a congestion of 
scholars at the library, and also requires much 
time. To manage the distribution of books de- 
mands a strong will, coupled with a gentle manner 
in maintaining the library rules. 

(4) The Return. The theory of the Sunday- 
school library is that each scholar will bring his 
book back after a week or two weeks. But boys and 
girls — sometimes older scholars also — are apt to be 
careless. Books are exchanged between scholars, 
are loaned from one home to another, are forgotten, 
and are lost. And the books lost most readily are 
frequently those that are most sought for by the 
scholars. How to induce scholars invariably to 
return their books constitutes the third problem 
of library management. In many schools the 
percentage of lost books is exceedingly large. The 
librarian should do his utmost to reduce the loss 
to a minimum. To this end a few suggestions 
may be given : 

(a) Record of Scholars. Every scholar's name 
and address, with his library number, should be 
kept on record in the library; and every effort 
should be made to make the record conform to all 
changes in residence. 

(b) Record Sheet. The library should contain a 



Management of the Library 97 

record sheet, showing the number of every book 
issued, and the number of the scholar receiving it; 
to be canceled when the book is returned. This 
will show who is responsible for every book out 
of its place from the library. 

(c) Fines. A fine should be assessed upon the 
scholar for every book kept over time; and notice 
sent to the scholar at his home when a fine has 
become due. 

(d) Rewards. Scholars should be paid a reward, 
perhaps of ten cents for each book, if they can 
succeed in tracing and finding any book which 
has been out of the library two months or more. 
These plans, or others, may lessen, but no plan 
will entirely remove, the evil of books lost to the 
library through neglect or a worse crime. 



XIII 

THE TEACHER'S QUALIFICATIONS AND NEED 
OF TRAINING 

While the superintendent in the school is the 
moving and guiding intelligence, the pulse of the 
machine, the teacher in the class is the worker 
at the anvil, or the loom, or the lathe, for whom 
all the plans are made, and upon whom all the 
success depends. In the warfare for souls he is 
on the picket line and at close range, fighting 
face to face and hand to hand. The sphere of his 
effort is small, that group gathered around him 
for an hour on Sunday, but in that little field his 
is the work that counts for the final victory. His 
task requires peculiar adaptedness, supplemented 
by special training. 

i. His Qualifications. There are on the American 
continent not less than a million and a half Sunday- 
school teachers, who give to the gospel their 
free-will offering of time, and toil, and thought. 
They are not like civil engineers or the majority 
of public-school teachers, graduates of schools that 
have given them training for a special vocation. 
In every respect they are laymen, engaged for six 
days in secular work, and on one day finding an 
avocation in the Sunday school. Yet there are 
certain traits, partly natural and partly acquired, 
which they must possess, if they are to find success 
in their Sabbath-day service. 

(i) A Sincere Disciple. The Sunday-school 
98 



The Teacher's Qualifications 99 

teacher must be a follower of Christ, not merely 
in profession but in spirit. He is one who has 
met his Lord, has heard and has obeyed the call, 
"Follow me." He enlisted in the grand army of 
which Christ is the Commander, before he received 
his assignment to the army corps of the Sunday 
school, and his fidelity to the department is in- 
spired by his deeper loyalty to his Lord. It is 
eminently desirable that the Sunday-school teacher 
should be a member of the church ; but it is imper- 
ative that he should be a disciple of Christ. 

(2) A Lover of Youth. By far the largest pro- 
portion of scholars in the Sunday school, perhaps 
nine tenths, are under twenty-five years of age. 
Therefore, with few exceptions, the teachers must 
deal with young people ; and youth at all its stages 
is not easy to understand and to manage. More- 
over, the fact that not only the teachers, but to 
a large extent the scholars, are volunteers enters 
into the problem. Pupils attend the week-day 
school and submit to a teacher's rule because they 
must, whether their teachers are acceptable or are 
disliked. But the rule in the Sunday school is 
not the law of authority; it is the law of persuasion. 
The teacher who cannot draw his scholars, but 
repels them, soon finds himself without a class. 
In all teaching sympathy, or the coordination be- 
tween the interest of the teacher in the pupil and 
of the pupil in the teacher, is a strong factor in 
success ; but in the Sunday school it is an absolute 
necessity by reason of the voluntary element in the 
constitution of the Sunday school. That mystic 
power which will combine uncongenial spirits, and 
fuse the hearts of teacher and scholar into one, 



lOO Organizing the Sunday School 

is love. Let the teacher love his scholars, let him 
see in each pupil some quality to inspire love, 
and the battle is half won. Love will quicken 
tact, and love and tact together will win the com- 
plete victory. 

(3) A Lover of the Scriptures. Whatever the 
Sunday school of to-morrow may become, the 
Sunday school of to-day is preeminently a Bible 
school. There are tendencies in our time which 
may in another generation render the Bible less 
prominent, and introduce into the Sunday school 
studies in church history, in social science, in 
moral reform, in missions, perhaps in comparative 
religion, or in some other departments of knowl- 
edge. But as yet the great text-book of the 
school is the Holy Scriptures. The volume should 
be in the hand of every teacher and of every 
scholar during the school session; and the teacher, 
especially, must study it during the week. If all 
of the Bible that he knows is contained in the 
paragraphs assigned for the coming lesson, and the 
rest of the book is sealed to his eyes, he will be 
a very poor teacher. He needs to have his mind 
stored with a thousand facts, and to have these 
facts systematized, in order to teach ten; and the 
nine hundred and ninety which he knows will add 
all their weight to the ten which he tells. 

(4) A Willing Worker. The teacher's love for 
Christ, for his scholars, and for his Bible is not 
to expend itself in emotion or even in study; 
it is to find expression in efficient service. A task 
is laid upon him which will demand much of his 
time and his power of body, mind, and spirit. 
He must be ready to meet his class fifty-two 



The Teacher's Qualifications 1 1 

Sundays in the year: on days of sunshine and days 
of storm; when he is eager for the work, and when 
he is weary in it; when his scholars are responsive, 
and when they are careless; when his fellow 
workers are congenial, and when they are anti- 
pathetic; when his lesson is easy to teach, and 
when it is hard. He must be regular in his service, 
not turned aside by opportunities of enjoyment 
elsewhere; and he must give to it all his powers 
and all his skill. Work such as this can be sus- 
tained only by an enduring enthusiasm, a devo- 
tion to the cause; and therefore the teacher must 
have his heart enlisted as well as his will. 

As a Sunday-school teacher, then, four har- 
monious objects will claim a share in his love: his 
Lord, his scholars, his Bible, and his work. 

2. His Need of Training. For two generations it 
was supposed that any person fairly intelligent, 
without special equipment, was fitted to be a 
Sunday-school teacher. There are found no records 
of training classes in Sunday-school work earlier 
than 1855, when the Rev. John H. Vincent began 
to gather young people and train them for service 
in his Sunday school at Irvington, New Jersey. 
The seed of his "Palestine Class' ' grew into the 
"Normal Class"; and by 1869 there were in a 
few places classes for the teaching of teachers in 
the Bible and Sunday-school work. It is not 
remarkable that Sunday-school teacher-training 
should be delayed so long after the organization 
of the first Sunday school, when it is remembered 
that in America the first Normal School for secular 
teachers was not founded until 1839. The Chau- 
tauqua movement, begun in 1874, gave a strong 



102 Organizing the Sunday School 

impetus to Sunday-school teacher-training; the 
state associations and denominational organizations 
took up the work ; and now teacher- training classes 
are to be found in every state and province on the 
American continent. The thoroughly graded school 
includes in its system a class for the training of 
young people who are to be teachers. 

It is late in the day to inquire why the Sunday- 
school teacher needs training; but the question is 
often asked, and the answers are ready: 

(i) The General Principle. All good work in- 
volves the prerequisite of training. Especially is 
this true of teaching; and there is a reason why 
the principle holds with regard to the Sunday- 
school teacher even more directly than with the 
secular teacher. While the subjects of teaching are 
vitally important, relating to character and efficient 
service, the time for teaching is short, less than 
an hour each week, in contrast to the twenty or 
twenty-five hours in the week-day school. To 
make an impression in so short a teaching period, 
with such long intervals between the lessons, de- 
mands that the teacher be one who possesses 
exceptional fitness for his work, and this superior 
fitness cannot be obtained without special and 
thorough training. 

(2) The Teacher's Responsibility. All-important 
as is the work of religious teaching, for which the 
Bible is the chief text-book in the church, there 
is but one institution in our time charged with 
that mighty duty, and that is the Sunday school. 
The Bible is rarely taught in the home, which 
should be the first place for teaching it; it is only 
incidentally taught in the pulpit, of which the aim 



The Teacher's Qualifications 1 03 

is not so much instruction as inspiration. Prac- 
tically all the teaching of the Bible now devolves 
upon the Sunday school, and the Sunday school 
only. If the Sunday schools of the world for one 
generation should fail to teach the word of life, 
the knowledge of that word would well-nigh cease. 
And the one person charged with that task, the 
one on whom the responsibility rests, is the Sunday- 
school teacher. He who is intrusted with so great 
a work, and upon whose fidelity the work depends, 
must have a proper equipment; and that equipment 
presupposes training. 

(3) The Demand of the Age. We are living in 
an intellectual age, unparalleled in the history of 
the world. The boundaries of knowledge in every 
direction have widened, and in each realm the 
search is deeper and more thorough. Such wealth 
has been added through recent investigations to 
the store of Bible knowledge that most com- 
mentaries, expositions, and introductions of the 
past have now but slight value. Another exceed- 
ingly important realm that has been added to the 
domain of knowledge is that of child study, but 
recently an unexplored field, now open to every 
reader. In such a time as this the teacher who 
would impart the contents of the Bible to the 
young must have eyes and mind opened. He must 
know the results of modern investigation in 
the Scriptures and in the nature of those whom 
he teaches. His pupils are under the care of 
trained and alert specialists through the week; 
they must receive instruction from well-taught 
minds in the Sunday school. 

(4) The Teacher and His Class. The peculiar 



104 Organizing the Sunday School 

relation already referred to as existing between the 
Sunday-school teacher and his class presents an- 
other incentive to training. His relation is not like 
that of the secular teacher, who speaks with 
authority, and can command attention and study. 
The teacher in Sunday school cannot require his 
scholars to learn the lesson; the authority of the 
parent is rarely employed to compel home study; 
and as a result most of our scholars come to the 
Sunday school unprepared. This is not the ideal 
or the ultimate condition, but unfortunately it is 
still the real condition in at least nine out of ten 
Sunday-school classes. This condition makes the 
demand upon the teacher all the greater. Because 
his scholars are unprepared he must be all the 
better prepared. He must be able to awaken and 
arouse his pupils; he must inspire them to an 
interest in the lesson; he must so teach as to lead 
them into knowledge of the truth and a desire to 
seek it for themselves. Anyone can teach the 
scholar who is eager to learn; but to teach those 
who come to the class unprepared and careless, 
to send them away with a clear-cut understanding 
of the lesson, and an awakened intelligence and 
conscience — all this, under the conditions of the 
Sunday-school teacher's task, and in his peculiar 
relation to his scholars, requires not only ability, 
but also thoroughly trained ability. 

In view of all these considerations, it is not 
surprising that at the opening of the twentieth 
century the demand of the Sunday schools every- 
where is for better teaching, and for teachers who 
have themselves been taught and are able to 
teach others. 



XIV 

THE TRAINING AND TASK OF THE TEACHER 

i. The Training Needed. Many faithful workers 
in the Sunday school realize their need of prepara- 
tion; but, while conscious of unfitness, they have 
no clear conception of the equipment which they 
require. What are those fields of knowledge which 
should be traversed by one who has been called 
to teach in the Sunday school? They comprise 
four departments: (i) the Book, (2) the scholar, 
(3) the school, and (4) the work. 

(1) The Book. We have already noted that the 
Sunday school is differentiated from other systems 
of education in the fact that it uses mainly but 
one text-book, the Holy Scriptures. For that 
reason the teacher must first of all acquaint him- 
self as thoroughly as possible with the contents of 
that wonderful volume. He should be a twentieth 
century Bible student; not a student or a scholar 
according to the light of the Middle Ages, or the 
seventeenth century, or even of the first half of 
the nineteenth century; for in all those periods the 
aims, the methods, and the scope of Bible study 
were different from those of the present time. 
He who is to teach the Bible successfully to-day 
must have some knowledge of the Bible in the 
following aspects: 

(a) Its Origin and Nature. He must have 
a definite idea of how the sixty-six books of 
Scripture were composed, written, and pre- 

105 



106 Organizing the Sunday School' 

served; and, as far as may be known, who were 
their authors. 

(b) Its History. The Bible is, more than any- 
thing else, a book of history, containing the record 
of a people who received the divine revelation and 
preserved it. The divine revelation cannot be 
taught nor comprehended unless the annals of that 
remarkable people, the Israelites, be first read and 
understood. Therefore biblical history should be 
the first subject to be studied by the teacher in 
the Sunday school. The leading facts and under- 
lying principles of that unique history must be 
understood; not in an outline of minute details, 
but as a general landscape, in which each lesson 
of the Bible will take its place. 

(c) Its Geographical Background. The Bible 
brings before us a world of natural features which 
remain — seas, mountains, valleys, and plains; a 
world of political divisions which has passed away; 
its empires, kingdoms, and tribal relations; and 
cities and towns, some of them now desolate, 
others in poverty and in ruin. The teacher who 
is to instruct his pupils must be able to see those 
abiding elements, and by the aid of his historical 
imagination to reconstruct those that have changed. 
He must make that ancient world of the Bible 
roll like a panorama before the eyes of his mind. 

(d) Its Institutions. Upon every page of the 
Bible are stamped pictures of manners, customs, 
institutions, forms of worship, that are unfamiliar 
to our Christian, Anglo-Saxon, modern world. The 
teacher must become familiar with this local color 
of another civilization, and enable his class to see 
it through his eyes. 



Training and Task of the Teacher I07 

(e) Its Ethical and Religious Teaching. In the 
past, and until a generation ago, the Bible was 
studied only for its doctrines. It was generally- 
treated as one book, all written at once and by- 
one author; its history, biography, institutions, 
were passed over as unimportant; while every 
sentence was searched for some light upon theology. 
From the Bible, by assorting and grouping its 
texts out of every book, a system of doctrine was 
constructed; and the mastery of this system with 
its proof-texts was regarded as the principal work 
of the Bible student. That method of Bible study 
has justly fallen into disuse among modern 
scholars. The Bible is now looked upon as a record 
of life rather than as a treasury of texts. Yet its 
stream of ethical, religious, and spiritual teaching 
must be found and followed by the student who 
is to teach the truth; and the doctrines revealed 
through the Bible should be regarded as a necessary 
part of his training. 

(2) The Scholar. One book must be studied 
closely by the teacher, and that is his pupils. 
During the last thirty years human nature in all 
its stages, as child, as youth, during adolescence, 
and in maturity — especially in the earlier periods — 
has been investigated as never before. The student 
in our time can enter into the results of special 
study upon these subjects. He needs to know 
what the best books can give him of child study 
and mind study; and to supplement book-knowl- 
edge in this department with watchful eyes and 
close thought upon the traits which he finds in 
his own scholars. 

(3) The School. The teacher in the Sunday 



1o8 Organizing the Sunday School 

school needs to understand the institution wherein 
he is a worker. The Sunday school is like the 
week-day school, yet unlike it; and the teacher 
must be able to appreciate at once what he can 
follow and what he should avoid in the methods 
of the secular school. The history of the Sunday- 
school movement, its fundamental principles, its 
organization, officers, methods of management, and 
aims — all these are in the scope of the teacher's 
preparation. 

(4) The Work. Whether on Sunday or on 
Monday, a teacher is after all a teacher, and 
the laws of true teaching are the same in a 
Sunday school, in a public school, and in a 
college. The application of those laws may 
vary according to the ages of pupils, the sub- 
jects of instruction, and the aims of the insti- 
tution, but the principles are unchanging. Those 
enduring principles of instruction are well un- 
derstood, are set down in text-books, and can 
easily be learned by a student. There are success- 
ful teachers who know these principles by an 
intuition that they cannot explain; but most people 
will save themselves from many mistakes and 
comparative failure by a close study of modern 
educational methods. 

In some way knowledge in all these four great 
departments of training should be obtained by the 
teacher, if possible, before he enters upon his task; 
but if he has missed earlier opportunities of 
preparation he must acquire this knowledge even 
while he is teaching. The outlines of such a course 
of study should be given in the training class for 
young people; and such a training class should be 



Training and Task of the Teacher 109 

regarded as essential to every well-organized 
school. 1 

2. The Teacher's Task. All the preparation 
briefly outlined in these last paragraphs is only 
preparatory to the work which the teacher is to 
do in his vocation. The task set before the teacher 
is fourfold: 

(1) As a Student. The studies named above are 
not completed when the teacher has passed out 
of the training class with a certificate of gradua- 
tion. The public-school teacher who ceases to 
study after finishing the course of the normal 
school is foredoomed to failure. The training class 
or the training school has only outlined before the 
teacher the fields to be traversed, and shown him 
a few paths which he may follow. He who has 
undertaken to teach a group of scholars, whether 
in the Beginners Department, the Senior Depart- 
ment, or any grade between them, must continue 
his studies, in the Bible, in the specific course of 
graded lessons which he is teaching, and in general 
knowledge; for there is no department of thought 
or action which will not bring tribute to the 
teacher, to be turned into treasure for his class. 
The Sunday-school teacher must ever maintain an 
open mind, a quick eye, and a spirit eager for 
knowledge. His accumulation will prove a store 
upon which to draw for teaching; and even that 
unused will give its weight to truth imparted to 
his class. 

(1) As a Friend. The teacher is more than a 
student dealing with books; he is a living soul 



1 For detailed methods and plans, see the volume of this series on 
The Training of Sunday School Teachers. 



1 lO Organizing the Sunday School 

in contact with living souls. If the most masterly 
lesson teaching in the realm of thought could be 
spoken into a phonograph, and then ground out 
before a class, it would fail to teach, for it would 
utterly lack the human element. Knowledge 
counts for much in teaching, but personality counts 
for far more. If a teacher is to be successful he 
must have a close relationship with his class. They 
must know him, he must know them, and there 
must be a common interest, nay, a common 
affection, between the two personalities of teacher 
and pupil. He must be a friend to each one of 
his scholars, schooling himself, if need be, to friend- 
ship; and each of his scholars must be made to 
realize that his teacher is his friend. This personal 
affection need not always be stated in words. The 
teacher who constantly assures his scholars that he 
loves them will not be believed as readily as the 
one who shows his love in his spirit and his acts, 
even though he may refrain from affectionate 
forms of speech. 

(3) As a Teacher. Teaching requires more than 
the possession of an abundant store of information 
upon any subject. He is not a teacher who simply 
pours forth upon the ears of his pupils an undi- 
gested mass of facts, however valuable those facts 
may be. The true teacher after large preparation 
assorts his material, and selects such matter as is 
appropriate to his own class. This he arranges 
in a form to be readily received, thoroughly com- 
prehended, and easily remembered. He comes be- 
fore his class with the fixed purpose that every 
pupil shall carry away with him a knowledge of 
the lesson, and shall not forget it. He must 



Training and Task of the Teacher 111 

awaken the pupil's attention; for talking to an 
inattentive group of people accomplishes no more 
than preaching to tombstones in a graveyard. He 
must obtain the cooperation of the pupil's interest, 
and induce him to think upon the subject. He 
must call forth from his pupil some expression of 
his thought in language, for one is never sure of 
his knowledge until he has shaped it into words; 
and that which the pupil has stated he is much 
surer to remember than that which he has merely 
heard. Teaching, then, involves (i) selection of 
material, (2) adaptation of material, (3) presenta- 
tion of truth, (4) awakening thought, (5) calling 
forth expression, (6) fixing knowledge in the 
memory. 

(4) As a Disciple. It is the teacher's task not 
only to impart to his scholars valuable information 
about the Bible, about God, about Christ, and 
about salvation; but, far more than imparting an 
intellectual knowledge, to bring the living word 
into relation with living souls, to inspire a fellow- 
ship of his pupils with God, to have Christ founded 
within them, to make salvation through Christ 
their joyous possession. Nor is his work as a 
working disciple accomplished when all his scholars 
have become Christians in possession and pro- 
fession, and members of Christ's Church. By his 
example and his teachings he should lead them 
to efficient service for Christ in the church, in 
the community, and in the state. There is work 
for every member in the church, and work for 
everyone possessing the spirit of Christ in the 
community. Whatever may have been the type 
of a saint in the twelfth century, or in the six- 



1 1 2 Organizing the Sunday School 

teenth, or even in the early nineteenth century, in 
these stirring, strenuous years of the twentieth 
century the disciple of Christ is a man among 
men or a woman among women, active in the 
effort to make the world better, and to establish 
in his own village, or town, or ward of the city, 
the kingdom of heaven on earth. To inspire his 
scholars for such labors, and to lead them, is the 
supreme opportunity and work of the teacher. 



XV 

THE CONSTITUENCY OF THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 

i. Relation to the Community. The Sunday 
school is a temple built of living stones; and the 
quarry from which they are taken in the rough, 
to be cut and polished for their places in the 
building, is the entire community in which the 
school is placed. In our time, more than ever 
before, the reasons are imperative why special 
study should be given to the community from 
which the school must draw its members. Certain 
principles of administration will become apparent 
when once the field is carefully considered. 

(i) Constituency Adjacent. The population from 
which a given Sunday school draws its members 
must be generally that immediately around it. 
Some teachers and scholars may come from a 
distance, but even in this age of convenient transit 
by trains and trolley cars, it is found that, taking 
the church building as a center, the constituency 
of the Sunday school in a city is mostly within a 
radius of half a mile, and in the country within 
a mile. Throughout that sphere of influence the 
church should look well to the population, should 
know its proportionate elements, as far as possible 
should come into acquaintance with the families, 
and should plan to win, to evangelize, and to hold 
all its natural following. 

(2) Membership Representative. Upon general 
and almost invariable principles, the Sunday school 

113 



114 Organizing the Sunday School 

should represent all the elements of the population 
within its environment. If it be a residence section 
with isolated houses, each containing but one 
family of well-to-do people, the church is apt to 
be a family church, and a large Sunday school 
must not be looked for, since large mansions rarely 
contain large families. If, on the other hand, 
the neighborhood be populous, characterized by 
varied strata of society — a few rich, a goodly 
number fairly prosperous, and a greater mass of 
wage-earners, yet the section as a whole American 
and not foreign in its civilization — then a flourish- 
ing, active, and growing Sunday school should be 
expected. And it should embrace all these ele- 
ments, the rich, the middle class, and the wage- 
earners, in the proportion which each bears to 
the community as a whole. If the school in such 
a population be small, or if it be composed exclu- 
sively of one class, whether it be the so-called 
better class or the mission class, there is a serious 
error in its policy. The true Sunday school should 
be representative of all the elements in the popula- 
tion. It is both a crime and a blunder to limit 
the efforts of a Sunday school to one class of 
society: a crime, because such a school leaves 
multitudes around it to perish; and a blunder, 
because the effort results in an anaemic, dwindling, 
dying institution. 

(3) Methods Adapted. Almost every community, 
whether in city or in country, possesses some 
traits peculiar to itself. There may be two towns 
ten miles apart, one the wealthy residential suburb 
of a city, the other a settlement surrounding a 
great factory. The population of these two places 



The Constituency of the School 1 1 5 

will be in marked contrast, and the methods of 
Christian work successful in one will utterly fail in 
the other. One street or avenue in a city may 
mark the boundary line between family churches 
and mission churches. Within ten minutes' walk 
of each other may stand two churches of the same 
denomination, yet so utterly apart in spirit as to 
possess nothing in common but name. It is 
possible that each of these two organizations might 
learn something from the other, and might do 
their Master's work better by a closer community 
of interest and feeling. Yet it would be a mis- 
take to introduce into either church all the plans 
that are successful in the other; or to reject in 
one Sunday school any method because it has 
proved a failure in another and a different field. 
The work of each church and Sunday school must 
be adapted to the population from which its 
membership is to be drawn. 

2. The Changing Population. One of the most 
imperative questions confronting the gospel worker, 
both in the church and the Sunday school, arises 
from the constant changes taking place in our 
population. In the cities we see stately churches, 
once thronged, now well-nigh desolate, while their 
walls echo to the tread upon the sidewalk of a 
churchless multitude. In front of a fine old 
church, where once millionaires worshiped, the 
writer has often passed a news-stand upon which 
are for sale newspapers in seven different lan- 
guages. And too often one finds that the churches 
of a generation ago have been turned into low 
theaters, or torn down, giving place to stores and 
office buildings. The general principle may be laid 



1 1 6 Organizing the Sunday School 

down, that a church in the city almost never lives 
more than one generation in the same building 
and with the same character. After thirty years 
as the very longest period, if it is to retain its 
members, it must follow them in the march up- 
town; or if it is to retain its location and still 
hold a congregation it must seek an absolutely 
new constituency, and to this end must transform 
its methods of work. Nor are these migrations of 
population confined to the city. The towns and 
villages are governed by the same law of change. 
A village, once the seat of quiet homes, is suddenly 
turned into a factory town, with a new and strange 
population. The farms on country roads, aban- 
doned by the families that formerly tilled them, 
are occupied by foreigners of alien speech and 
manners. The building of a railroad will open 
new towns, and at the same time will make more 
than one deserted village. These changes in 
population must be considered in their relation to 
the work of the Sunday school. The movement 
will be characterized by varied traits in different 
places. 

(i) A Growing Population. The change may be 
that of a healthy growth in population, making 
the community a desirable place for a church and 
a Sunday school. Such a development is constantly 
taking place in the newer portions of a city, 
whose population is moving from the center to 
the rim; or it may be noted in suburban towns, 
as facilities of transportation bring new residents 
from the metropolis; or it may appear in villages 
springing up on the line of a railroad, where home- 
seekers are settling and building habitations. 



The Constituency of the School 1 1 7 

Leaders in church and Sunday-school work must 
watch these growing centers, and provide wisely 
for their religious needs. It will not suffice to 
wait for these newcomers to build their own 
churches and organize their own Sunday schools. 
Most of them are taxed to the utmost in building 
or buying their own homes, and will scarcely 
realize their need until the habit of neglecting 
worship has become fixed, and their children grow 
up without religious education. The old and strong 
churches must extend a hand to the settlers, must 
preempt church sites at the very beginning, must 
help to erect chapels, for a time must supply 
workers, and must set the current of the new 
settlement God ward and churchward. The reward 
of their labor and their liberality will not long be 
delayed. 

(2) A Declining Population. There are places 
where the population has lessened, making the 
work of the Sunday school increasingly difficult and 
its results meager. It may be in the city, where 
business has crowded away the dwellers of other 
years, as in the lower end of Manhattan Island 
in New York. There tall office buildings and 
warehouses stand on sites formerly occupied by 
churches, but no longer needed, now that almost 
the only residents are the janitors and their 
families, living on the roofs of the towerlike 
temples of trade. But oftener the region of the 
declining population is found in the country. 
Villages once prosperous have gradually lost 
their inhabitants. In places where three or four 
churches, each with its Sunday school, were for- 
merly well supported, there is now scarcely a 



1 1 8 Organizing the Sunday School 

constituency for one. Yet all these churches, 
though decayed and dying by inches, are still 
maintained; and each church still houses a dis- 
couraged Sunday school, attended by a faithful 
few, but with no hope of growth and an imminent 
peril of extinction. If loyalty to a denomination 
could give way to love for the kingdom of Christ, 
these might be consolidated into one church and 
one Sunday school for all the community. We 
venture the prophecy that before the twentieth 
century comes to its close this will be throughout 
the American continent the accepted settlement of 
the question. May its fulfillment be not long 
delayed! In the meantime these decayed but 
still enduring Sunday schools and churches in a 
community should seek for peace and friendship, 
not emphasizing the points of doctrine or of 
system that differ, but those that agree, and 
striving to maintain the unity of the spirit in a 
bond of love. 

(3) A Population Changing Socially. A serious 
problem often arises, not from a decline but from 
a change in the social condition of the population 
within the sphere of the church. The downtown 
church may have been forsaken by its former 
members, but people of another class, and in 
greater numbers, have taken their places. The 
mansions have become boarding houses, flats and 
apartment houses have arisen, while the thronged 
sidewalks, and the children playing in the streets, 
are evidence that the material for members of the 
church and the Sunday school is greater than 
before. True, the new inhabitants are of a different 
social order from the old, clerks and porters instead 



The Constituency of the School 1 1 9 

of merchants, employees instead of employers, 
working people in place of the leisure class. The 
fact that the social level of the neighborhood may 
be regarded by the worldly-minded as lower than 
formerly does not lessen its need of the gospel, 
nor render it less promising for Christian work. 
The church should look upon its field with unprej- 
udiced eyes, should have an understanding of the 
time ; should be alert to see and to seize its oppor- 
tunity; and should change its methods with its 
changed constituency. The field must not be 
abandoned; it must be cultivated, and new forms 
of tillage will bring forth abundant harvests. 

(4) An Alien Population. The most perplexing 
of all social problems arises when immigration has 
swept into the district surrounding the church a 
tide of people whose birth and speech are foreign, 
supplanting and in large measure driving out the 
native population. There are sections in our cities 
where the signs on the stores are all Bohemian, 
or Polish, or Yiddish; where an English-speaking 
church would remain absolutely empty, though 
thousands throng the streets. It may be that in 
such conditions gospel work under American 
methods can no longer be maintained; and a 
removal may be necessary. But even in the most 
unpromising fields this conclusion should not be 
hastily reached. We spend large sums in sending 
missionaries to the lands from which some strangers 
come; should we not embrace opportunities of 
evangelizing these at our own door? There are 
difficulties, but they are not nearly as insuperable 
as those in foreign fields. These foreign-born or 
foreign-descended children sit beside our own in 



120 Organizing the Sunday School 

the public school; should we shut them out from 
our Sunday schools? In less than a generation 
millions of these boys and girls will be as thoroughly 
American as our own children. When we consider 
the question of abandoning any field on account of 
its foreign population, let us widen our horizon of 
thought to embrace the future as well as the 
present, and then form our conclusion concerning 
the duty of the Sunday school to the community. 

3. Practical Suggestions. A few hints, some of 
them already given, may summarize the practical 
side of the subject : 

(1) Study the Field. The Sunday school must 
live not in the past, but in the present, with a 
clear vision of the future. It must not only 
cherish a loving memory of its field as it has been, 
but understand thoroughly what it is, and what 
forces are shaping it for the future. The leaders 
in each Sunday school working for itself, or pref- 
erably those conducting the Sunday schools of a 
neighborhood working unitedly, should ascertain 
the nationality, religious condition, and church 
relations of every family in the district; and not 
only of every family, of every individual who may 
have a room in a boarding house. Each political 
organization knows the residence and party pro- 
clivities of every voter in the district; and the 
churches may learn from the politicians practical 
lessons upon the best methods of work. 
. (2) Cultivate the Field. Since the scholars must 
come to the school from the population around it, 
they should be sought, brought in, taught, and 
evangelized, with all the energy and wisdom which 
the church possesses. And not only the scholars, 



The Constituency of the School 1 2 1 

but also, in large degree, the teachers must be 
home-born and home-taught ; therefore the Sunday 
school, to be successful, must train up workers 
from its own constituency. 

(3) Provide for all Elements. By diligent and 
constant effort the school should be made repre- 
sentative of all ages, of all classes, of all sections, 
and as far as practicable of all races found in its 
community. 

(4) Adapt Methods. If a former constituency 
has removed from the field, and a new population 
has surged in, the new element must be looked 
upon as the constituency of the school. Its needs 
must be recognized, however different they may be 
from the needs of the past; and plans must be 
formed to meet those needs, whatever transforma- 
tion of the school the new plans may involve. 



XVI 

RECRUITING THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 

i. Necessity. The aspiration for advancement is 
natural and noble; and therefore every member of 
the Sunday school who is interested in its welfare, 
whether officer, teacher, or pupil, desires it to 
increase in membership, and to spread its benefits 
as widely as possible. But the recruiting of the 
Sunday school is not only desirable, but necessary. 
It is found that in every school there exists an 
outflow as well as an inflow of members. If in 
certain departments, as the Primary, new scholars 
are constantly enrolled, in other departments, as 
the older grades of the Intermediate and the 
Senior, there is as constant a dropping out of 
members from the school. It has been estimated 
that in most Sunday schools from twenty to 
twenty-five per cent of the membership changes 
annually, so that the average period of a teacher 
or scholar in the Sunday school is less than five 
years. There are some who remain longer, but 
others who are members for even a shorter time. 
Upon the average, every school is a new school 
once in four or five years. If one fifth of the 
school leaves every year, there must be an equal 
number enter it, to keep the school at its normal 
size. But any institution dependent upon the 
maintenance of a constituency, whether it be a 
periodical, a life-insurance association, or a Sunday 
school, begins to decline when its number remains 

122 



Recruiting the School 1 23 

stationary, The health and life of the school, 
therefore, require a constant renewal of its mem- 
bership. The school must have new blood, or it 
will soon be impoverished and in time die. 

2. The Losses from the School. Before the 
presentation of plans for winning new scholars 
comes the vital question of holding the scholars 
already on the roll; for the condition of leakage 
has a close relation to growth or decline. If the 
causes of the leakage can be ascertained, and the 
drain can be stopped, we shall be materially aided 
in our effort to enlarge the school. 

(1) The Search in the School. Careful notation 
should be kept of the grades from which scholars 
are lost, or which are below a normal membership ; 
and equally careful inquiry should be made as 
to the cause of the decline, and methods to correct 
it should be sought. Is it in the Primary Depart- 
ment, which should be the most rapidly growing 
department in the school? Is it in the Junior or 
Intermediate Department, where there ought to be 
a steady increase, even if it be slow? Is it in the 
Senior Department? Here there is great danger 
of losses, especially among young men. Is it not 
possible to find why they leave the school, and 
what will induce them to remain? Perhaps the 
school is deficient in the Adult Department. Must 
it be admitted that the Sunday school is for chil- 
dren only, and that as soon as its members become 
men and women their departure from the school 
is to be expected? The investigation should be 
more than general, ascertaining what departments 
are suffering loss; it should be personal, including 
the name and grade of every scholar who has 



124 Organizing the Sunday School 

ceased to attend for a definite period; and as far 
as possible the reason for his leaving the school. 

(2) Following up Absentees. A systematic plan 
for watching over the membership of the school 
should be instituted and vigorously maintained. 
For example, in some schools a report of every 
absentee is made by the secretary to the super- 
intendent. On Monday morning each teacher re- 
ceives by mail the list of his absent scholars, with 
a request to send in writing, as soon as practicable, 
the cause of absence for each one. In many schools 
this work of looking after the absentees is per- 
formed by paid visitors — a good plan, but not so 
good as for the teacher to come into personal 
touch with his own scholars. A business firm 
watches over its customers, and endeavors in 
every possible way to hold them. The Sunday 
school which can maintain its grasp upon its 
members has the problem of growth already half 
solved. 

3. Characteristics of a Growing SchooL The 
strongest force in recruiting the Sunday school is 
to be found in the character of the school itself. 
The merchant must have his shelves stocked with 
attractive goods if he expects customers. In order 
to obtain scholars there must be a good school. 

(1) Efficient. The school should maintain high 
educational standards ; should be thoroughly graded 
in all its departments, with suitable lessons for 
each grade; and should have organized classes for 
young people and adults. The thoroughly good 
school will rarely lack for scholars. 

(2) Attractive. The school should be attractive 
as well as efficient. Its meeting place should be 



Recruiting the School 1 25 

cheerful and airy, with suitable furniture and 
apparatus, above ground, and not a damp, dingy 
basement. It should have enjoyable exercises, like 
a school, yet not too severely like a public school. 
It should greet new members heartily, make them 
feel at home, and cultivate acquaintance with them. 
There should be an animating spirit of loyalty and 
love for the school; a devotion which will inspire 
active effort in its behalf. Around the school 
should be the atmosphere of a happy home. 

(3) Prominent. Among the activities of the 
church the school should stand forth prominently. 
It should be kept in mind that, as the neighbor- 
hood furnishes the constituency of the school, so 
the school furnishes the members for the church. 
In our time three fourths of the accessions by 
profession of faith come from the Sunday school. 
The school should be held in honor as the principal 
source of supply to the church membership. If the 
audience room is large and imposing, and the 
Sunday-school room is inferior and unattractive ; if 
the pulpit and the choir are amply supported while 
the school receives a narrow sustenance, however 
great the prosperity of the church its duration will 
be brief. The Sunday school must stand in the 
foreground, and not in the background, if the 
church is to grow; and the growing church should 
have a growing Sunday school. 

(4) Special Occasions. Throughout the Sunday- 
school year occur days which should be recognized, 
as breaking the monotony of the regular exercises, 
and as attractive features of the school. Such are 
Christmas, Easter, Children's Day in June, Rally 
Day in the fall, and Decision Day, when the net 



126 Organizing the Sunday School 

is drawn for discipleship in behalf of the church. 
Some superintendents look upon these occasions as 
burdensome, but with careful preparation and an 
attractive program they will add to the interest of 
the school, while in no wise detracting from the 
efficiency of its educational work. An occasional 
social entertainment for the school, or for each 
department in turn, and an outing day in the 
summer, will strengthen that esprit de corps or 
animating spirit of the school which is its strongest 
drawing power in attracting new members. 

(S) Special Helps. There are communities where 
certain methods may avail more than elsewhere. 
A well-conducted Sunday-school library, no longer 
needed in many places, may be of great value in 
villages where there is no public library. A reading 
room, social hall, and gymnasium may constitute 
the church a home for young men whose dwelling 
places may be in close tenement houses. Young 
men are in saloons, and young women are in 
amusement parks, who might spend their evenings 
under the healthy influence of the church if places 
were provided. These plans and other features of 
the institutional church will need careful and wise 
administration if they are to do good and not 
harm; but in many places they will minister to 
the success of the school and the church, and also 
to the uplifting of the community. 

4. Reaching Beyond the School. Thus far in this 
chapter we have considered the school rather than 
the field. One of the chief tasks of the Sunday 
school, however, is to reach out and lay hold of 
all the inhabitants, both young and old, in the 
area of its influence. The following active measures 



Recruiting the School 1 27 

have proved effective in reaching the people and 
winning them to the school. 

(1) Advertise. The school should be kept before 
the community in every legitimate way. Mer- 
chants tell us that the secret of success is first 
to have salable goods, and then to advertise them; 
and the same principle applies to the Sunday 
school. Printer's ink should be used liberally, but 
wisely. Only neatly printed, attractive matter 
should be employed. Invitation cards, leaflets, 
programs of special services, a little periodical 
devoted to the school, a year book containing the 
school register, and many other forms of advertise- 
ment will help to inform the neighborhood that 
the school is at work and is ready to welcome 
new members. 

(2) Invite. Every officer, teacher, scholar, and 
parent should consider himself a committee to 
speak to others about the school, and to invite 
his friends and acquaintances to attend it. The 
little children should ask their playmates, boys and 
girls in school their classmates, young men their 
shopmates, young women their associates. No 
printed paper can have a tenth of the power 
possessed by the living voice and a hearty hand- 
shake. It is assumed that the invitation is given 
only to those who are not already attached to any 
church or school. All possible care should be 
taken to maintain a fraternal spirit, and not to 
build up our own wall by pulling down another. 

(3) Visit. The field belonging to the school 
should be bounded definitely, and should be thor- 
oughly and systematically canvassed. It should be 
divided into districts, and each district assigned 



128 Organizing the Sunday School 

to a visitor and a committee, who should know 
who may be included in the proper constituency of 
the school. For this work many schools and 
churches employ a paid visitor or a deaconess; and 
none can surpass the zeal or fidelity of many who 
enter upon such a vocation. But the schools 
which cannot afford professional workers include 
some teachers and some adult scholars who can 
give a portion of their own time to the same 
task. An organized class of men might be named 
which grew into over a hundred members through 
persistent work by a simple plan. A lookout 
committee, after careful inquiry, would report the 
names and addresses of men eligible for member- 
ship. Then the members in order and by appoint- 
ment, in groups of two, called upon each candidate, 
formed his acquaintance, and invited him to the 
class. Sometimes thirty or forty men would call, 
but in time almost every man visited yielded to 
the friendly social influence, became a member, 
and soon after a worker for the class. 

5. A Danger. A caution may be needed with 
reference to all these plans of recruiting the school. 
Advertising may be carried to the excess of becom- 
ing sensational. Invitations may be pressed upon 
scholars in other schools. The effort for increase 
may degenerate into unfriendly rivalry. A good 
plan may work evil when worked in a selfish spirit. 
And a too-rapid growth is sure to be unhealthy. 
The late B. F. Jacobs said, "God pity the Sunday 
school that gets a hundred scholars at one time!" 
A quiet, steady, diligent, persistent effort for the 
school will be of permanent benefit, rather than a 
spasm of enthusiasm. 



XVII 

THE TESTS OF A GOOD SUNDAY SCHOOL 

In the United States more than a hundred 
thousand Sunday schools are in session every week. 
Some of them are very good, many are only 
moderately efficient, and some are poor in every 
respect. The question arises, what constitutes a 
good Sunday school? Is it possible to establish 
some standard of measurement by which the rank 
of any Sunday school can be fixed? In such a 
standard there must be several factors, for the 
points of excellence in Sunday school are not one, 
but many. It is the aim in this closing chapter 
to ascertain the criteria or the tests of a good 
Sunday school. The statement of these tests in- 
volves the summing up and in some measure the 
repetition of much already given throughout these 
pages. 

i. Representative Character. The first test of a 
Sunday school is found in its relation to the 
community around it. The Sunday school is not a 
bed of exotic plants, dug up from their native soil, 
potted and protected in a conservatory. It is an 
outdoor garden wherein are cultivated the flowers 
and fruits that are indigenous to the region. A 
true Sunday school is a group of people drawn out 
of the larger world around it, and representing 
every element in that world, both as regards social 
life and age. If it represents the rich and the 
prosperous only, it is not a good school, unless the 

129 



I30 Organizing the Sunday School 

neighborhood is unfortunate in containing only 
such people. If it is a mission school for poor 
people in the midst of a self-supporting population, 
it is not a good school. If it includes few members 
above sixteen, and none above twenty-five years 
of age, it is not a good school, for it should embrace 
all ages from the infant to the grandfather. The 
school which is to stand on the roll of honor is 
one that fairly represents its constituency. 

2. Organization. Another requirement for a good 
school is that it be well organized as a graded 
school. There may be Sunday schools which make 
up by their spirit for what they lack in system; 
yet the exceptions are few to the rule that in 
Sunday-school work organization is essential to 
success. It is true that machinery creates no 
power; there is nothing in a constitution and by- 
laws to make an institution successful. It is the 
efforts of living men and women that bring to 
pass results. But organization directs and econ- 
omizes power; so that, other elements being equal, 
the graded school quickly becomes the best school. 
We have already seen that a graded school is one 
with departments defined, with the number of 
classes in each department fixed according to the 
needs of the school, with promotions at regular 
periods, based either on age or examination or 
merit, or on all three factors in combination, with 
lessons graded according to the departments, and, 
as its most important element, with a change of 
teachers when the pupil is promoted from a lower 
to a higher grade or department. The graded 
system is not easy to establish; it requires firmness 
and tact in the authorities, and a self-denying 



The Tests of a Good School 1 3 1 

spirit on the part of teachers; but it will abundantly 
and quickly repay all it costs in effort and sacrifice, 
and it is an essential in a really good Sunday school. 

3. Order. A good school is orderly, yet it is 
not too orderly. Everybody is in place at the 
proper time. At the minute, and not a minute 
later, the superintendent opens the school. If he 
rings a bell, it is a gentle, musical one, held up by 
the leader as a signal and scarcely sounded. There 
is not more confusion than at the opening of any 
other religious service. Only one service is con- 
ducted at a time; singing is worshipful, just as well 
as prayer, and the Scriptures are read thoughtfully 
and reverently. No officers are rushing up and 
down the aisles during the services; no loud calls 
are made for order ; yet there is a suitable quietness 
when quietness is desirable. A good school is 
never disorderly, yet it cannot be said that the 
best school is always the most orderly. Occasion- 
ally one sees a Sunday school where order has 
gone to the extreme of repressing all enthusiasm, 
where the program is too finely cut and too thor- 
oughly dried, where the mechanism moves with the 
precision of the lockstep in a state prison. The 
ideal of the Sunday school is not that of the French 
minister of education who is reported to have 
stated that he could look at his watch and tell at 
that minute what question was before each class 
in every school in France ! 

4. Spirit. For lack of a more definite term we 
call the next characteristic of a good Sunday 
school its spirit. In any successful school one feels 
rather than finds a peculiar and individual atmos- 
phere. Every member, from the superintendent to 



I32 Organizing the Sunday School 

the Primary scholar, manifests an interest in the 
institution; an interest of blended love, loyalty, 
enjoyment in it and enthusiasm for it. There is 
a social spirit in each class and in the school as a 
whole. Its members do not meet as passengers in 
a railway station, each one wrapped up in his own 
business and watching for his own train. They 
all have their individual friendships and social 
relations, yet a bond unites them all as members 
of one Sunday school. This peculiar esprit de corps, 
an interest in the institution, is a strongly marked 
feature in every progressive Sunday school. 

5. Educational Efficiency. The Sunday school is 
in the world with a definite work — religious educa- 
tion. Its religion will be based on the Old Testa- 
ment and kindred literature in a Jewish school; 
it will be based on both the Old and New Testament 
and supplemental literature in a Christian school; 
but whether Jewish or Christian, its work is the 
teaching of religion, as contained in the living 
Word, and illustrated by the lives and teachings 
of the heroes of the faith. The true test of a Sunday 
school is the answer that it can give to the question, 
"Does it teach the vital religious truths of the 
race so as to develop individual character and 
efficiency ?" That is its task, and by its success 
in accomplishing it each school is to be judged; 
not by the splendor of its building, or the exactness 
of its machinery, or the enthusiasm of its members. 
The thirty or thirty-five minutes devoted to the 
lesson is the supremely important period in every 
true Sunday school. The time is often bound to 
be all too short for teaching divine truth, and 
printing it upon mind and memory so deeply that 



The Tests of a Good School 1 33 

all the studies and pleasures of the six days be- 
tween the two Sundays will not cause the teaching 
to fade. Yet the time is as long as the ordinary 
teacher (or preacher) can hold attention to one 
subject, and therefore in most classes it is suffi- 
cient. Toward that half hour of teaching, therefore, 
all the energies of the school, of the training class, 
home study, teachers' meeting, gradation, govern- 
ment, should be turned. For the vital aim of the 
Sunday school is the eternal message of God to 
men through men, so that men and women of the 
Christ spirit and character may be developed. 

6. Character-Building. The first task, therefore, 
of the Sunday school is to teach the Word, but that 
teaching is only a means to an end, and that end 
is greater than mere intellectual knowledge — it is 
the building up of a complete character. This is 
more than "bringing souls to Christ/ ' or leading 
them into church membership. If the sole aim 
of the Sunday school was to compass the salvation 
of the scholar and to surround him with the walls 
of a church, then we might safely dismiss our 
scholars when they have passed through a crisis 
of conversion and entered the church door. But 
the Sunday school is to do more than save its 
scholars from sin. It is to train them in the 
completeness of a Christian character; and such a 
character involves not only personal righteousness 
but also service for God and humanity. Its aim 
is not to take people apart out of the world, but 
to set them in the world, equipped for work in 
making the world a Christian world, and thereby 
establishing on earth the kingdom of heaven. The 
measure by which the Sunday school accomplishes 



134 Organizing the Sunday School 

such a work as this, constitutes the final, crucial 
test of its success. 

It cannot be said that any one of these six 
essentials of a good Sunday school stands supreme. 
They do not march in Indian file; nor are they 
to be set one against another in a comparison of 
values. These traits of a complete Sunday school 
should rather be regarded as one of the New 
Testament writers describes the traits of a complete 
character, in that familiar yet only half -understood 
passage, "As in the harmony of a choral song, 
blend with your faith the note of energy, and with 
your energy the note of knowledge, and with your 
knowledge the note of self-mastery/' 1 through all 
the eight aspects of the Christian; so let these six 
essential elements be combined to form that noble 
institution, the ideal Sunday school. 

i 2 Pet. i. s-7. 



APPENDIX 



BLACKBOARD OUTLINE AND REVIEW 
QUESTIONS 



i35 



I. THE HISTORIC PRINCIPLES UNDERLYING 
THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL MOVEMENT 

BLACKBOARD OUTLINE 



i. Mag. 
2. Mod. 

3 Lft y- 

4. Unp. Wor. 


'-■ 1— ■ ■ — » 4 

5. Sel.-sup. 

6. Sel.-gov. 

7. Sel.-dev. 

8. Bib. stu. 



REVIEW QUESTIONS 

To what race in the world does the Sunday school 
mainly belong? 

What are some of the lands in which it is found ? 

What does the circulation of its literature show? 

What influence is the Sunday-school movement exer- 
cising upon the world ? 

How many salient traits of the Sunday school are 
named in this chapter? 

What are those traits in the order named? 

To what race can the ancient germ of the Sunday 
school be traced? 

What institutions among that people contained the 
elemental principle of the Sunday school? 

What gathering similar to a Sunday school is described 
in the Bible? 

Who was the founder of the modern Sunday school? 

In what place, and what year, was the first Sunday 
school held? 

What aided to make this institution known? 
t Was the first Sunday school established under direc- 
tion of the clergy or the laity? 

Has the clergy, or the laity, been the more prominent 
in the work of the Sunday school throughout its history? 

What has been the attitude of the church toward this 
institution ? 

What has been stated concerning the compensation of 
the teachers in the earliest Sunday school? 
t Was the plan of paying teachers for their services con- 
tinued ? 

Are the majority of Sunday-school officers and teachers 
now paid for their services? 

137 



I38 Organizing the Sunday School 

What has been the effect of this condition, of unpaid 
service, upon the growth of the Sunday-school move- 
ment ? 

How has this _ condition of voluntary, unpaid work 
affected the moral influence of the Sunday school? 

How have the expenses of the Sunday school in most 
places been met in the past? 

How are such expenses met in the best schools at the 
present time? 

How has the self-support of the Sunday school in the 
past affected its government? 

What is the present share of the church in the govern- 
ment of the school? 

What forces have directed the development of the 
Sunday school as a movement? 

What fact in its origin largely accounts for the unity of 
method in the Sunday school? 

What is the text-book studied in the Sunday school? 

What has been the influence of the Sunday school in 
behalf of the Bible? 



II. THE CONSTITUTION OF THE SUNDAY 
SCHOOL 



fcT- 


BLACKBOARD OUTLINE 


I. 

2. 

3« 
4- 
5. 
6. 


Aim. Rel. ins. (1) Kn. (2) Ch. (3) Ser. 

Meth. Tea. (1) Teach. (2) Sch. (3) Text-b. 

Rel. Ch. Bel. ch. Ca. ch. Sup. ch. Feed. ch. Sup. ch. 

Gov. (1) Rights of teach. (2) Auth. of ch. 

Off. (1) Sup. (2) Assoc, sup. (3) Sec. (4) Treas. (5) Fac. 

Mem. All ag. all clas. 



REVIEW QUESTIONS 

What is a Sunday-school constitution? 

What is the difference between an ideal and a practical 
plan? 

Are all constitutions written? 

What six points should be provided for in the consti- 
tution of the Sunday school? 

What should be the aim of the Sunday school? 

State the definition of the Sunday school as given by 
Dr. Vincent. 

What three elements are involved in a true religious 
education ? 



Appendix 1 39 

What difference may be noted between the Christian 
ideals of the past and of the present? 

What method does the Sunday school employ in its 
work? 

What are the three essentials in the working of a school ? 

What does the Sunday school seek to accomplish in its 
pupils ? 

What text-book is generally used in the Sunday school? 

Why is this book taught so widely? 

May material outside of this book be employed in 
teaching ? 

What is the relation between the Sunday school and 
the church? 

Why is some government needed in the Sunday school ? 

What two elements should be recognized in the man- 
agement of the school? 

Name the officers of the Sunday school. 

Who should constitute the members of the school? 



III. THE NECESSITY AND ESSENTIALS OF A 
GRADED SUNDAY SCHOOL 

BLACKBOARD OUTLINE 



1. Nee. Gra. (1) Sch. as wh. (2) Cond. cla. (a) Ineq. siz. 
(b) Ineq. ag. (c) Lac. cl. sp. (3) Dif. adm. (a) Obt. tea. 
(b) Trans, sch. 

2. Ess. Gra. Sch. (1) Dep. (2) Fix. num. cla. (3) Ann. 
sim. pro. (4) Ch. tea. (5) Gra. Less. (6) Bas. pro. 



REVIEW QUESTIONS 

Into what departments are most Sunday schools 
divided ? 

Why does not the mere division into departments con- 
stitute a graded Sunday school? 

In what department is the school growing most rapidly ? 

From what departments does the school lose its pupils ? 

What is often the condition of classes for young people 
of fifteen years and older? 

What inequalities may be noted in the classes of an 
average Sunday school? 

What spirit is apt to be lacking in the school ? 

What two great difficulties are met by the superinten- 
dent of an ungraded school? 



I40 Organizing the Sunday School 

Sum up the six difficulties or defects .which will be re- 
moved in a measure by grading the school. 

Name the six essentials of a thoroughly graded Sunday 
school. 

Draw a diagram representing the manner of seating 
the departments of a Sunday school. 

What is meant by a fixed number of classes in each 
department of a graded school? 

How should promotions be made from one department 
to another? 

Why should not teachers accompany their classes when 
the pupils are promoted from one department to another? 

What kind of lessons should be taught in the different 
departments of the school? 

Should promotions be made on the basis of age, of 
merit, or as the result of examination? 

Why cannot examinations in the Sunday school main- 
tain the same standards as those of the public school? 



IV. THE GRADING OF THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 
BLACKBOARD OUTLINE 



~ — 














"!■ 


I. 

2. 

(c) 3 ' 

4. 

wk. 


Diff. 
Rem. 

Meth. (1) Grad. (2) Simul. (a) Com. 
A.ss. sch. (d) Ro-ca. 
Adv. Thor. Gra. (1) App. (2) Ord. (3) Soc 
(5) Inc. int. (6) Obt. tea. (7) Leak.-per. 


(b) Ag. sch. 
rel. (4) Tea. 



REVIEW QUESTIONS 

What is the greatest difficulty to be met in grading a 
Sunday school? 

What is the remedy for this difficulty? 

What are the two methods of grading an ungraded 
school ? 

How may a school be graded by the gradual method ? 

What are the four steps to be taken if a school is to be 
graded by the simultaneous method? 

What is to be done when scholars are unwilling to re- 
ceive promotion ? 

Name seven advantages of the graded school. 

Wherein does the graded school differ in appearance 
from one ungraded? 

How is order maintained more easily in the graded school ? 



Appendix 1 4 1 

How does grading influence the social relations of the 
scholars ? 

Why is teaching easier in the graded school? 

How does the graded Sunday school increase the 
interest of the pupils? 

Why is it easier to supply teachers in the school after 
it has been graded? 

What is meant by "the leakage period" in the scholars 
of the Sunday school? 

How does the graded school hold the scholar in the 
school ? 

V. THE DEPARTMENTS OF THE GRADED 
SUNDAY SCHOOL 

BLACKBOARD OUTLINE 



i. Cradle Roll, (i) Members. (2) Catalogue. (3) How ob- 
tained. (4) Gifts. (5) Management. (6) Value. 

2. Beginners Dep. (1) Ages. (2) Teaching. (3) Meeting 
place. 

3. Primary Dep. (1) Ages. (2) Classes. (3) Lessons. 

4. Junior Dep. (1) Ages. (2) Classes. (3) Lessons. 

5. Intermediate Dep. (1) Ages. (2) Classes. (3) Lessons. 
(4) Special aim. (5) Christian character. 

6. Senior Dep. (1) Name. (2) Ages. (3) Classes 
(4) Teachers. (5) Organization. (6) Social life. 

7. Teacher-Training Dep. (1) Members. (2) Teacher. 

(3) Studies. (4) Requirements. (5) Aims. (6) Reserve class. 

8. Adult Dep. (1) Members. (2) Classes. (3) Methods. 

(4) Courses of study. 

9. Home Dep. (1) Need. (2) Plan. 



REVIEW QUESTIONS 

What are the four principal departments of an ordinary- 
Sunday school? 

In this chapter how many departments are described? 

What are the names of these departments? 

What department includes the names of the youngest 
children? Wherein does this department differ from 
most of the other departments? How should the list of 
its members be kept ? How may names be obtained for 
it? What privileges should be given to the members of 
this department? What are the benefits of this depart- 
ment to the school? 

What is the name of the second department? What 
ages should it embrace? What should be the exercises in 



I42 Organizing the Sunday School 

this department? How should these pupils be seated in 
the school? 

What is the third department named? What ages 
should it include? How should it be organized? What 
lessons should be taught in it? 

What is the fourth department? What are the ages of 
its pupils? How may they be classified? What lessons 
should be taught to them? 

What is the fifth department? What ages does it in- 
clude? How should the classes be formed? Why should 
small classes be the rule in this department? What les- 
sons should be taught? What should be a special aim of 
teachers in this department? What type of Christian 
character should be sought? 

What is the sixth department? What other names are 
applied to it? What ages should it include? What re- 
quirement should be made of those entering this depart- 
ment by promotion ? How should the classes be organized ? 
Who should teach in this department? How may the 
social spirit be cultivated? 

What is the seventh department? Who should be 
included in its membership? Who should be sought as 
the teacher? What condition should be required of its 
members ? What studies should be followed ? How should 
the course be conducted? What other class should also 
be connected with the Teacher- training Department? 
How shall this class be conducted? 

What is the eighth department? Who should be in- 
cluded in it? What are the two methods of instruction 
in this department? What courses of study should be 
taken ? 

What is the ninth department? Who constitute its 
members? What care and help should be given to these 
people? What should be expected of them as members 
of the school? 



VI. THE SUPERINTENDENT 
BLACKBOARD OUTLINE 



I. 

2. 

3- 
4- 
(4) 

Hi- 


Imp. (N. Y. C. 
Appt. Tea. ch. 
Ter. Off. One 
Qual. (1) Mor. 
Bib. stu. (5) Ab 


R. R.). 
past. 
ye. 

char. 
. exec. 


(2) Dev. 

(6) Sym 


bel, 
you. 


(3) 1 

(7) 


Wot. 
Tea 


ch. 
spi 


Hi- 
mem. 
* 



Appendix 1 43 

REVIEW QUESTIONS 

What illustration from a railroad will show the im- 
portance of the superintendent? 

How should the appointment of the superintendent be 
made? Who should unite in the selection? How long 
should be his term of office? 

What are the traits named for an ideal superintendent? 

What should be his moral character? Why is such a 
character necessary in his office? What story of a states- 
man illustrates this ? 

In what respects should the superintendent be a be- 
liever in the gospel ? 

Why should he be a member of the church? What is 
his duty to the Bible? How may the superintendent 
influence his school to follow his requests? 

What should be his qualifications as an administrator 
or executive? 

What trait in relation to the young should he possess ? 

What should be his mental attitude toward knowledge, 
especially knowledge of methods? 

What story is told of a great sculptor? 



VII. THE SUPERINTENDENT'S DUTIES AND 
RESPONSIBILITIES 

BLACKBOARD OUTLINE 



i. Gen. (i) Sup. (2) Sel. tea. (3) Ass. sch. (4) Prog. ser. 
(5) Sup. 

2. We.-d. Wor. (1) Prog. (2) Les. stu. (3) Soc. dut. 
(4) Seek. work. (5) Cab. meet. (6) Sp. d. (7) Conv. 

3. Dut. Sch. Sess. (1) Pre. ear. (2) Op. pr. (3) Con. pro. 

(4) Dur. less. (5) Les. rev. (6) Clos. 

4. Misc. Dut. (1) N. B. (2) Q. (3) E. L. (4) Us. B. 

(5) Les. per. (6) Sp. (7) Sel.-con. (8) Aim. 



REVIEW QUESTIONS 

Into what three classes may the duties of the superin- 
tendent be divided ? 

What are his general duties and prerogatives in rela- 
tion to the school? 

What are his duties through the week? 

What social duties should he endeavor to fulfill? 

How may he obtain teachers and workers? 

What is the purpose of cabinet meetings? 



144 Organizing the Sunday School 

How may the superintendent be ready for special 
occasions in the Sunday-school year? 

What is his duty toward conventions and associations 
of workers ? 

What are the duties of the superintendent during the 
session of the school? 

What suggestions are given concerning the conducting 
of the program of the school ? 

Who should review the lesson? 

Name some miscellaneous hints concerning his work. 

How may he have a quiet, orderly school? 

How may he promote the use of the Bible as a text- 
book by teachers and scholars? 

What rule should be kept with reference to the lesson 
period ? 

Under what conditions should visitors be allowed to 
address the school during the regular session ? 

What suggestion is made concerning self-control? 

What aim should be kept before the superintendent 
and the school ? 



VIII. THE ASSOCIATE AND DEPARTMENT 
SUPERINTENDENTS 

BLACKBOARD OUTLINE 



i. Nee. Gen. asst. Dept. asst. 

2. Titles. Asso. sup. Dep. supt. 

3. App. Nom. sup. Conf. tea. "Minor, cand." 

4. Duties. (1) Not tea. (2) Dep. sup. (3) Prov. sub. 
(4) Assig. new sch. (5) Detail, sup. (6) Ch. st. 



REVIEW QUESTIONS 

What is the need of an assistant to the superintendent 
in the Sunday school? 

What two classes of assistants are required in an or- 
ganized school? 

What titles should be given to these officers? 

How should the associate superintendent be chosen ? 

Why should the superintendent possess the right to 
nominate the associate superintendent? 

Should the associate superintendent be at the same 
time a teacher in the school? 

When should the associate take charge of the school ? 

How should substitutes be obtained for teachers who 
are absent? 



Appendix 1 45 



What class should not be called upon to furnish sub- 
stitute teachers, and why? 

What class will supply teachers in a properly graded 
school ? 

How, when, and where should the teachers be obtained ? 

When should supply teachers be ready and in their 
places ? 

What is the work of the associate superintendent with 
reference to new scholars? 

Should new scholars select their own classes? 

What part may the associate take during the general 
exercises of the school? 

What military title might properly be given to the 
associate superintendent? Wherein does this title apply 
to him? 

Give a summary of the six duties performed by the 
associate superintendent. 

IX. THE SECRETARY OF THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 
BLACKBOARD OUTLINE 



1. Imp. 

2. Qual. (1) B. M. (2) R. A, (3) G. W. (4) Q. M. A. 
(5) Q. M. (6) C, C. 

3- App. 



5. Dep. Sees. 

6. Dut. (1) R. M. (2) R. S. (3) R. C. (4) R. S. (5) L. S. 
(6)C. 



REVIEW QUESTIONS 

Who is frequently and unwisely chosen as secretary of 
the Sunday school? What are the results of such a 
choice ? 

What results follow from an efficient secretary? 

What six qualifications are named for the ideal secre- 
tary? 

What traits of a business man should he possess ? 

What should be his principle with regard to regular 
attendance? What also should be included in his 
attendance ? 

Wherein should the secretary be a good writer? 

What should be the traits of his mental action ? 

What exercises in the school should never be interrupted 
by the work of the secretary? Should he ever come to a 
class while the lesson is being taught? 



I46 Organizing the Sunday School 

What should be the behavior of the secretary? 

How should the secretary be chosen? 

How long should be his term of office? 

How should the assistant secretary be appointed? 

What are department secretaries, and who should be 
appointed to this position? 

What seven duties are named for the secretary and his 
assistants ? 

What record should be kept of business meetings ? 

What are his duties with reference to reports from 
committees ? 

What weekly record should be kept of the attendance 
in the school ? 

What are the duties of the secretary with regard to the 
records of class attendance? 

What general catalogue of the members of the school 
should be kept? How should this record be arranged? 

What is the duty of the secretary with regard to the 
literature used in the school ? 

How should the official correspondence of the school be 
conducted ? 

X. THE TREASURY AND THE TREASURER 

BLACKBOARD OUTLINE 
* * 



1. Early §. S. Light expenses. 

2. Modern S. S. Large expenses. Objects. 

3. Practical Ways and Means. Methods. Objections. 

4. Ideal Way. Allowance. Subscriptions. Benefits. 

5. S. S. Treasurer. Relation to secretary. 

6. Treasurers Work. (1) Charge. (2) Bank account. 
(3) Reports and vouchers. (4) Bills. (5) Checks. (6) Audits. 
(7) Study of benevolent interests. 



* 

REVIEW QUESTIONS 

Why was little money required by the early Sunday 
schools ? Wherein was this fact fortunate for the schools ? 

Why are the expenses of the Sunday school greater 
than they were in the early years? 

What are the principal expenses of a modern Sunday 
school ? 

What are the methods of supplying funds for the 
Sunday school in most places? 

What is the objection to these methods? 

What is the ideal method of supporting the Sunday 
school? Under this plan what should be expected of the 






Appendix 1 47 

members of the school? What are the advantages of this 
plan? 

Should the same person act as secretary and as treas- 
urer ? In that case what principles should be observed ? 

What kind of a person should be chosen as treasurer ? 

What funds should be placed under his charge ? 

Where should he keep the money of the school? How 
should this bank account be conducted? 

What reports should the treasurer present, and where 
should be present them? 

How should all payments of the treasurer be au- 
thorized ? 

What should be done with bills against the school? 

In what form is it desirable to make payments for 
bills? 

How and when should the accounts of the treasurer 
be audited? 

What service can the treasurer render to the school 
in relation to benevolent interests? 



XL VALUE OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL LIBRARY 
BLACKBOARD OUTLINE 



4* 
















— — 4* 


I. 


Lib. 


Pas. 














2. 


Dec. 


Pres. 














3- 


Cau. 


Dec. 














4- 


Uses 


. G. Lib. 


(1) Fam. ne. (2) Mor. 


inf 


• (3) 


Aid sch. 


5- 


Prin 


Sel. (1) 


Var. 


(2) Pop. (3) Lit. 


qual. 


(4) 


Mor. 


tea. 


(5) 


Zh. sp. 














6. 


Com 


. S. S. Lib 














7- 


Pub. 


Lib. & S. 


S. 










* 



REVIEW QUESTIONS 

Why was the library important to the school in the 
earlier times? 

What are the facts regarding the decline of the Sunday- 
school library in recent times? 

What causes are assigned for the decline of the Sunday- 
school library? 

How are books more accessible now than in former 
times ? 

Why is the library no longer needed to draw pupils to 
the school? 

How does the present educational aim of the Sunday 
school affect the interest in the library? 



I48 Organizing the Sunday School 

What criticism is made upon the books in most Sunday- 
school libraries? 

How does the management of the library often inter- 
fere with the order of the school? 

What three benefits are named from a well-conducted 
Sunday-school library? 

How does the library in many places aid the school? 

What four principles should guide in the selection of 
books ? 

What classes of books should be in the library? 

Why must the books be popular and interesting? 

What should be the literary standard for books in the 
Sunday-school library? 

Should love stories be admitted? 

What moral standards should be maintained? 

What is meant by the Christian spirit in the Sunday- 
school library. 

What kind of a library should be sought for in the edu- 
cational work of the Sunday school? 

How may the use of such a library be promoted in the 
school? 

How may the public library be made useful to the 
Sunday schools in a city or town? 

XII. THE MANAGEMENT OF THE LIBRARY 

BLACKBOARD OUTLINE 



i* 


»< 


I. 


Lib. Com. (1) Pur. bks. (2) Freq. add. 


2. 


Libr. (1) Bkm. (2) Bus. m. (3) Gen. man. 


3- 


Asst. Lib. 


4. 


Man. Lib. (1) Coll. (2) Ass. (3) Dist. (4) Ret. (a) Rec. 


sch. 


(b) Rec. she. (c) Fin. (d) Rew # . 

_ ■!« 



REVIEW QUESTIONS 

Who should choose the books for the Sunday-school 
library ? 

What should be expected of the library committee? 

Why should a large purchase of books at one time be 
avoided ? 

How may the committee learn of new books ? 

How should donations of books be regarded? 

What are the advantages of small additions at frequent 
times ? 

Who should be sought for the Sunday-school librarian? 

How should the assistant librarians be chosen? 



Appendix 1 49 

What plan should be followed in collecting the books 
returned to the library by the scholars ? 

What are some plans for choosing books? 

What difficulties are met in the choice of books by 
scholars ? 

How should the books be distributed? 

What are the difficulties met in the return of books by 
scholars ? 

How may the loss of books be avoided? 

How may lost books be traced and brought back? 

XIII. THE TEACHER'S QUALIFICATIONS AND 
NEED OF TRAINING 

BLACKBOARD OUTLINE 



» 4 














* * 


i. Qual. (i) Sin. dis. 


(2) Lov 


you. 


(3) Lov. 


ser. 


(4)Wi 


work. 
















2. Nec. Train. 


(1) Gen. prin. 


(2) Tea. resp. 


(3) 


Dem. 


ag. 


(4) Tea. cla. 
„« 














> «« 



REVIEW QUESTIONS 

Why does the work of the Sunday-school teacher re- 
quire special qualifications? 

What four qualifications are named as requisite? 

What should be the relation of the teacher toward 
Christ? 

What should be his attitude of mind and heart toward 
young people? Why is this attitude necessary? 

What should be his relation to the Bible?* 

What is required of him as a worker? 

When did training for Sunday-school teachers begin in 
America ? 

What have been various stages and periods in the 
movement for teacher- training ? 

What four reasons are named why the Sunday-school 
teacher should receive training? 

How does the shortness of the time and its weekly 
meeting of the Sunday school relate to the training of 
the teacher? 

How does the teacher's responsibility make his training 
necessary ? 

What does this age demand of teachers? 

Why does this age make special demands upon Bible 
teachers ? 



I50 Organizing the Sunday School 

In what condition of mind with regard to the lesson 
do most of our scholars come to the Sunday school ? 

Why does the condition of the scholar require prepara- 
tion on the part of the teacher? 



XIV. THE TRAINING AND TASK OP THE 
TEACHER 

BLACKBOARD OUTLINE 



1. Train. Nee. (1) Book, (a) Or. nat. (b) Hist, (c) Geog. 
back, (d) Inst, (e) Eth. rel. tea. (2) Schol. (3) Schoo. 
(4) Work. 

2. Tea. Tas. (1) Stu. (2) Fri. (3) Tea. (4) Dis. 



REVIEW QUESTIONS 

What are the four departments of teacher-training? 

What in the Bible does the teacher need to know ? 

What does he need to know about his scholars ? 

What does he need to know about the school? 

What does he need to know about teaching? 

What are the four departments of the teacher's task ? 

What has he to do as a student? 

What may he do as a friend? 

What is required of him as a teacher? 

What is his work for his class, as a disciple of Christ ? 



XV. THE CONSTITUENCY OF THE SUNDAY 
SCHOOL 



BLACKBOARD 


OUTLINE 




•I* 


1. Rel. to Com. 
adap. 

2. Chang. Pop. 

3. Prac. Sugg. 

(4) Ad. meth. 


(1) Consl 

(1) Gro. 
(1) St. fi. 


,. adj. (2) Mem. 

(2) Dec. (3) Ch. 
(2) Cul. fi. (3) 


rep. 

soc. 
Pro 


(3) Meth.' 

(4) AH. 

f. all ele. 

^ 



REVIEW QUESTIONS 

What kind of a temple is the Sunday school? 
Whence must come the members of the school? 
What duty does the school owe to the population 
around it? 

Of what should a Sunday school be representative? 



Appendix 1 5 1 

What elements in a mixed community should enter 
into the Sunday school? 

What methods should be sought in localities where the 
traits and needs of the people differ? 

What fact regarding the population of our country 
brings great problems to the church and Sunday school? 

Give some instances of the effect of changing popula- 
tion upon churches. 

How often are churches generally compelled to change 
their constituency? 

What are some causes of the changed conditions in 
cities and country places? 

What should be done in growing communities? 

What are the conditions, and the remedy for them, in 
a declining population? 

How may a population change socially while increasing 
numerically ? 

What is the duty of a Sunday school in changing com- 
munities ? 

When may a church or a Sunday school rightly abandon 
its field? 

What is the first duty of the Sunday school in relation 
to its field? 

What is its duty to the population in its field, wherever 
the population can be reached ? 

What elements in the population should be provided 
for in the plans and efforts of the school? 

XVI. RECRUITING THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 
BLACKBOARD OUTLINE 



4* 




* 


I. 


Nee. 




2. 


Los. fr. Sch. (i) Sear, in sch. (2) Foil. abs. 




3- 


Char. Gro. Sch. (1) Eff. (2) Attr. (3) Prom. 


(4) Sp. 


occ. 


(5) Sp. hel. 




4- 


Reach. Bey. Sch. (1) Adv. (2) Inv. (3) Vis. 




■ I * 

»j+ 


Dang. 


■ ■ *> * 



REVIEW QUESTIONS 

Why is it not only desirable but necessary to seek for 
increase in the membership of the Sunday school? 

What is the percentage of change in Sunday schools 
annually ? 

For what should search be made in the school? 

How may the absentees from the school be looked 
after? 



]$2 Organizing the Sunday School 

What traits in a Sunday school will naturally draw to 
it scholars? 

Why should the Sunday school be made a prominent 
feature in the church? 

What are some special occasions in the year to which 
attention should be given? 

What special methods of building up the school may 
be employed in certain localities? 

How may the school be advertised? 

What are some advantages in a personal invitation? 

What plans for the visitation of the field are suggested ? 

What caution should be given concerning methods of 
recruiting the Sunday school? 

XVII. THE TESTS OF A GOOD SUNDAY SCHOOL 
BLACKBOARD OUTLINE 



I. 


Rep. 


Char. 


4- 


Sp. 




2. 


Org. 




5' 


Edu. 


Eff. 


3- 


Ord. 




6. 


Char 


,-buil. 


a ... 










w 



REVIEW QUESTIONS 

What is meant in the title of this chapter? 

How many tests or criterions are here named? 

What are these tests? 

What is meant by the representative character of a 
Sunday school? 

Why is organization necessary to constitute a good 
school ? 

What is included in a graded school? 

To what extent is order a requisite? 

How may the demand for order be carried to excess? 

What is "spirit" in a Sunday school? 

What constitutes efficiency in Sunday-school work? 

For what purpose is the teaching and work of the 
Sunday school? 

What is included in the building of a character, as an 
aim of the Sunday school? 

How should these tests or traits be viewed? 

What illustrative passage is given from the New 
Testament ? 



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